Ageless Beauty

Sept 08

The other day my son brought me a framed photo that had slipped behind some books in our library. It is one of my mother... one taken when I was a teenager. It was at the height of my declared war on her.

But the picture was snapped on a day of truce. For that day, we were our usual selves again. Gone was the controlling mother who was fearing I wasn't prepared for the real world. No where in sight was the sullen daughter resentful of the above on top of a new manipulative stepfather.

Mom is just being silly. When I went left home a couple of years later, can't recall who framed the photo, but its been with me for over 20 years now.

Here's the funny thing. My son didn't recognize the woman in the photo. He thought it might be Grandma. When I confirmed it, he replied "Wow, she sure does look a lot different."

No way! She looks the same.

But upon looking at it more closely and thinking about it... she does look different now. She's now in her early 60s instead her late 30s. Time, albeit very slowly and far less than some thanks to the oily skin gene, brought lines and wrinkles. She's also about 25 pounds heavier and her jaw-line has softened considerably. Her hair is now mostly gray but she's doing that creative dye job thing. So her rich reddish brown hues are gone and what replaced it (varies from year to year) never really looks natural to me. I can see why my son didn't quite recognize her in that photo.

That said though, the woman in the photo is indeed the one I actually see. Will there come a day when that woman is gone, replaced by a frail elderly lady? Is it some sort of denial of the inevitable truth that I'm doing? With old age, comes death. If I don't see the signs of age, I'm not thinking that some day, Mom won't be there.

Or is it just pure love? She was truly a beautiful woman in her youth for sure. Time may have changed some of her physical beauty but because of my love for her, the inner beauty wipes out those changes for me.

Perhaps its a combination of both...