The heartwarming moment a toddler recreated a picture taken of his mom almost 30 years earlier has left social media users holding back tears.
Marrin Howey, 29, shared a post on TikTok (@radgems) comparing the almost identical images, which were taken 29 years apart. The first photo was from 1995, showing Howey playing at the kitchen sink in her parents' first apartment, standing on a chair and wearing a red checkered apron. Flash forward almost three decades, and her one-year-old son was doing the same thing, complete with the exact apron his mom wore all those years ago.
Seeing her son recreate the photo was a special moment for Howey, from Utah. She told Newsweek that it "brought tears to [her] eyes" and she was left speechless by how similar the images were.
"The picture was in my baby scrapbook, so I have known about it my entire life," Howey said. "I wanted to recreate the picture because my son is the same age I was when my mom took the photo. My mom is a sentimental person, and she kept a lot of clothes from when my siblings and I were little, including this apron. So, I set my son up in the kitchen to play at the sink. I started taking some photos and realized he was posing almost the same way I was 29 years ago. I was totally shocked."
Howey shared both photos with her family, and they were all amazed by the similarities. It was incredible to see the near-identical images (albeit with somewhat better quality in the modern version).
She also shared the pictures on social media, much to the delight of TikTok users. The post showing the photo from 1995, and the updated version from 2024, has gone viral with more than 741,000 views and over 176,900 likes at the time of writing.
Many people were amazed that Howey even has access to the same home she grew up in, but she explained to Newsweek that it's a multigenerational home that's stayed in her family.
She said: "My grandpa built this home in 1978, and it's where my mom was raised from when she was five until she married my dad. When my parents were engaged, my grandpa finished the basement to be an apartment where my parents lived as newlyweds and when they had me. They built their own home and moved away when I was about 18 months old.
"Flash forward 17 years, my parents bought the house from my grandparents because their health was declining. My grandma and grandpa downsized and moved into the basement until they passed away in 2017 and 2019. When my husband and I got married in 2020, we moved into the basement apartment, which has been remodeled, but a lot of things have stayed the same."
Now, she plans to recreate more of her childhood photos because the home "has endless memories."
"I love my family history and I'm so excited to make more memories with my son," Howey told Newsweek.
In just a matter of days, the TikTok post has gained more than 400 comments as the images melted plenty of hearts online.
One comment reads: "If you love something and take care of it, it'll take care of you. This apartment is so full of love."
Another TikTok user wrote: "It's like the same person at the same time with the same place."
While another commenter added: "all we do on this app is cry."
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