Mother Earned Her Wrinkles
borrowed from Erma Bombeck
According to her height and weight on the insurance charts, she should be a
guard for the Los Angeles Lakers.
She has iron-starved blood, one shoulder is lower than the other, and she
bites her fingernails.
She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She should be. She’s
worked on that body and face for more than sixty years. The process for that
kind of beauty cannot be rushed.
The wrinkles on her face have been earned…one at a time. The stubborn one
around the lips that deepened with every “No!” The thin ones on the forehead
that mysteriously appeared when the first child was born.
The eyes are protected by glass now, but you can still see the perma-circles
around them. Young eyes are darting and fleeting. These are mature eyes that
reflect a lifetime. Eyes that have glistened with pride, filled with tears
of sorrow, snapped in anger and burned from loss of sleep. They are now
direct and penetrating and look at you when you speak..
The bulges are classics. They developed slowly from babies too sleepy to
walk who had to be carried home from Grandma’s, grocery bags lugged from the
car, ashes carried out of the basement while her husband was at war. Now
they are fed by a minimum of activity, a full refrigerator and television.
The extra chin is custom-grown and takes years to perfect. Sometimes you can
only see it from the side, but it’s there. Pampered women don’t have an
extra chin. They cream them away or pat the muscles until they become firm.
But this chin has always been there, supporting a nodding head that has
slept in a chair all night.
The legs are still shapely, but the step is slower. They ran too often for
the bus, stood a little too long when she clerked in a department store, got
beat up while teaching her daughter how to ride a two-wheeler. They’re
purple at the back of the knees.
The hands? They’re small and veined and have been dunked, dipped, shook,
patted, wrung, caught in doors, splintered, dyed, bitten and blistered, but
you can’t help but be impressed when you see the ring finger that has shrunk
from years of wearing the same wedding ring. It takes time – ands much more
to diminish a finger.
I looked at Mother long and hard the other day and said, “Mom, I have never
seen you look so beautiful!”
“I work at it,” she snapped.
~~
Dr Bob Griffin
[email protected] www.grif.net
“Jesus Knows Me, This I Love!”