Lip Service

"Put the lipstick on Mum."

"No."

"Put the lipstick on Mum, it looks nice."

By the time my nana was 102, this was a conversation that occurred with regularity between her and my mother.  I do not know why really, but it became a thing. 

I blamed my mother. She had had a face lift and acid peel of her upper lip and chin that year. The pale color of her skin after, if she wore no make-up, left her looking like a ventriloquist's dummy. I felt it was a bad trade-off. My mother was gorgeous, but had decided at 60 if she was going to continue in corporate America she had to appear to be younger.  She had hidden out in our other rental after the facelift while I ran between apartments caring for Nana and Mom, while lying to Nana about Mom's whereabouts.  After a week, Mom "came home" but was wearing a surgical mask to hide the scabbed and weeping lip and chin area.  Finally, she realized the futility of attempting to hide her vanity from Nana and removed the mask.

"Why did you do that?" Nana inquired.

"Well, you know Mum, I wanted to get rid of those lines on my lips. Your lipstick runs up the lines and it makes you look old."

"Do I have those?" Nana asked.

I laughed out loud. She was 102 and while she looked good for her age, there were wrinkles.  Of course, she had cataracts and therefore her world was in a constant state of soft focus. I loved the fact that she had never noticed nor cared that she had wrinkles, but now she knew it was a possibility.

For the remainder of the time she lived with us, another fifteen months, I would often catch Nana sitting with a mirror in her trembling hand attempting to locate her upper lip lines. She stopped wearing her pink lipstick because she was not sure if it would travel up the lines she could not see and had not known about. 

"Hope you're happy Mom.  She was completely content until you had to tell her she had lip wrinkles." and then I'd laugh.

In the last year of my mom's life, as her memory dimmed and I was now her caretaker, I would ask her to do things that she did not want to do.  She would ask me who died and left me in charge.  I would smile and say - "Put the lipstick on."