Skin Deep

Christmas
(I never could pose as well as my mother.)

My friends always told me how beautiful my mother was. She was from the old south, rural Louisiana. She wore her hair teased with heavy makeup. She didn’t know how pretty she really was without all that extra color. Raven black, curly hair, almond shaped, green eyes, a sharp nose and high cheekbones compliments of her Daddy’s Blackfoot blood, copper colored skin speckled with freckles from her Mother’s Scotch-Irish side. She was a 5’7” beauty. Homecoming Queen in the 50’s. Toned legs that never showed one dimple of cellulite, even though her stomach had the typical post-birthing pooch.

“Don’t worry, the doctors can do wonders with plastic surgery nowadays,” was what my Aunt Carol told my mother when I was born. I had no chin and they were worried. My sharp, prominent chin grew in with a vengeance – a curse, I’m sure.

With my cousins, Annette and Tonja
(notice my "cocked" hip...)

“Your Momma’s beautiful.” That’s what they all said. I don’t remember ever having a friend who didn’t comment on how pretty my mother was.

The first time I saw my mother without make-up was when I was 5 years old and she was in the hospital after a car accident. I remember hiding behind my babysitter’s blue gingham skirt, not believing that was my mother in the hospital bed. Her nails, makeup and hair had always been perfect, my whole life. After a pin in her eyebrow, her jaw sewed back together, and a plastic surgery patch-up, the only difference was the missing dimple in her left cheek.

I was skinny – looked like I was an Ethiopian child – ‘least that’s what my mother said. My dark brown hair was straight as a board. My Momma tried to curl it but no matter how much hair spray she used, the curls fell out within 30 minutes. I couldn’t even stand straight. One hip was always cocked and my mother was frustrated with me every time pictures were made. I learned to lift my right heel off of the ground just enough to even my hips out so that I’d stay out of trouble. (I found out when I was 29 that I had one leg longer than the other and severe scoliosis – I’d adjusted myself all those years in an effort to live up to my mother’s expectations.)

An embarrassing perm, compliments of my mother.

I was 5’10” when I was 12 years old, weighing all of about 110 pounds, soaking wet. My mother was mortified. As I started high school, she bought me flat shoes and told me to be patient, that when I was 30, I’d still be tall and skinny, but the short little cheerleaders (who were currently dating the tall basketball players),…. Well, their asses would all spread out like fresh cow shit. No kidding. Those were her exact words.

The stage was set. I spent most of my adult years trying to be as beautiful as my mother wanted me to be, but I couldn’t do it. I was always tall and awkward, with a bad back, and a too-prominent chin.

Divorcing my father when I was nine, my mother went through three additional husbands over the next 15 years. I experienced abuse of every kind and my mother refused to see any of it. I spent every possible moment out of the house and never found comfort in my own home.

Me and my Girls, in Hawaii!

Those defining moments growing up left me feeling 2^nd place. However, I hope I’ve turned those tables around with my own daughters.  My girls’ friends have never said how beautiful I am, but they always love coming to my house because of the comfort found there. I’ve always put my daughters first, making sure they understand their worth inside and out. Having raised my girls on my own for over 13 years, I’ve always made them first in my life. I’ve been blessed with daughters as beautiful as my mother on the outside but their strength of character on the inside comes straight from me.

It’s true what they say – Beauty is only skin deep.