#30Layers30Days Day 4: What She Saw

Our conversations were more candid in her final weeks. Aunt Dino’s time was limited and we all had a dwindling tolerance for frivolities. So when she broke the silence with a declaration about my mother, no one made a peep.

“She was a goddess!” Aunt Dino said with fervor. “Untouchable.” And though she was looking beyond me, I knew exactly what she saw.

My mother was an untouchable goddess. She has soft skin, almond eyes, and beautiful hands. She was a cheerleader who had “allll the guys,” if you let Aunt Dino tell it.
“I just wanted to be like her. I just wanted to be around her. I didn’t care anything about her boyfriends. I wanted to be like Connie.”

Before Aunt Dino said it that day, I couldn’t define that lurch in my belly when I saw my mother when I was younger. But then I knew what it was: a reach. A desire to be as beautiful. I listened to Aunt Dino, nodding my head, as a string of memories began to make sense.

Bee and I used to spend endless summer afternoons elbows deep in mommy’s treasure, trying on her clothes and shoes, dotting our faces with eyeliner to replicate her beauty mark. We would stuff our back and front sides to give our prepubescent bodies a little umph.

“Who am I?” we’d say, dressed head-to-toe in our mother’s garb, inevitably bursting into a fit of giggles at the recognition of our chosen Mommy caricatures.

• Mommy at Church: complete with a long skirt, Bible bag, and several Sunday school lesson posters.
• Mommy on Vacation: sun hat, glasses, capris, cigarette.
• Mommy on Saturday morning: The Housedress (remember the gold and black housedress, Bee?).
• Mommy after work: Business suit, pantyhose, tube socks, commuting tennis shoes.
• Mommy dating Daddy (also known as Mommy from the Pictures We Weren’t Supposed to See): complete with short-shorts, loopy gold earrings, and the stuffed elephant Daddy gave her 1,000 years ago.
• Nurse Mommy: literally anything plus Mommy’s nursing school stethoscope.
• Cruise Portrait Mommy: the most glitzy, sparkly, shimmery dress, her highest heels, and every ounce of makeup we could find.  

Sometimes I wonder if there was more to the charade than just “Name That Mommy.” I wonder if it’s true that I never wanted to be like my mother, or if, deep down inside, I never felt that I could. She and I are so different. Our spirits are made up of opposite materials. But there was always something in me that wanted her glamour, that saw her as the beauty I’d never be. That day with Aunt Dino, I saw what she saw, and what I didn’t know I’d seen in my mother all along.

She was a goddess, untouchable.