Vintage Blush

I never met my grandmother, she died when my mom was in college, but my mom always tells me I am her reincarnation. My mom reminisces about how her mother liked to paint and was very artistic just like me. She also says we share the same dark, wavy hair and a sort of impish look. I have spent countless hours looking at old pictures of her and have tried to find our intangible cord, but I don’t feel it. She looks more graceful than me and her talents far exceeded mine.

My favorite picture of her is in a bathing suit with her arms akimbo and her head thrown back in a laugh. She looks so carefree. I love it. I wish I had known that person, but I am not that person. Still, I believe we must share some bond because my mom knows both of us and she maintains its presence. I only know me, and some days I’m not even sure about that.

I am fascinated by my grandmother, but awkwardly distant too. I don’t even know what to call her. I mean she is my grandmother, but I didn’t call the two grandparents I knew by formal or traditional names, but rather by family nicknames. She had one too, but it doesn’t feel right to me. It doesn’t feel right to be so familiar with someone I never met. And so as often as not I use her given name, but people look at me funny then, like that is somehow irreverent.

When I became a teenager, my mom gave me her mother’s silver blush case. I have treasured it ever since, partly because it feels like a family treasure, but mostly because after carrying it around and fidgeting with it for some time, I discovered that my grandmother had two slips of paper hidden behind the mirror. Written on the slips were her married name, or variations of it. I imagined her writing it out days after accepting my grandfather’s proposal, fidgeting in church and trying to figure out her new identity and new role in the world.

Today I am looking for that vintage case to anchor me, to reassure me, to search for that bond. Today I received a diagnosis that changed my world, a diagnosis she also faced, and so I want to hold that case to connect to her, to feel that bond, to channel her strength, to redefine myself the way she did.

But I can’t find it. I know I had left it on my vanity, but it isn’t there. With increasing apprehension, I search through my drawers, but it isn’t anywhere. I know its value to me lies in its symbolism and that I need to calm down, but instead I feel panic threatening to overwhelm me. I sit on the bed and force myself to take a deep breath. It is then that my hand settles upon my daughter’s hairbrush which should not be sitting there.

With a sneaking suspicion, I go down the hall to her room. Her room is a disaster zone and it isn’t even safe to walk in it, but I simply do not have the energy to fight her today. I stand in the doorway and scan the piles of clothes, toys, hair accessories, and the collection of makeup she has been pilfering from me. Finally, on her dresser, which is a family heirloom itself, I spot it. Carefully, I pick my way across the room and pick it up, replacing it with her brush. I turn around, intending to return to my room, but find myself confronted by my defiant diva instead.

“What are you doing?” she asks with her hands on her hips, her chin tilted up.

I am not about to be bullied by my miniature, so mimicking her sass, I return, “Just reclaiming something that was taken.”

“No! Don’t take that! I want that!” she flies at me.

  “Why do you want it?” I ask, surprised by her passion.

“It’s a secret,” she says, snatching it out of my hands. She looks at me as if determining whether or not I can be trusted, then opens the case and reveals the notes behind the mirror.

“Wow, what are those?” I feign surprise and then realize there are three notes. One stands out as its paper is a bright white in sharp contrast to its yellowed companions. On it I see my name scribbled on the paper in her handwriting. I flip it over and find two sentences:

I love my mom.

She can do anything.

Tears start to fill my eyes, but my daughter doesn’t notice as she snatches them back and slips them behind the mirror. She snaps the blush case shut and there is a moment of uncertainty. Her words meant more to me than I could say. They have strengthened me, but I don’t want to waste that strength on an unnecessary battle. I can’t tell when she is thinking, perhaps nothing, perhaps everything. She turns into her room and I expect her to put it back on her dresser. But she turns back and with a little skip is in front of me again, handing the case to me.

“Thank you,” I manage. “Why?”

She shrugs. “You need it. You need to see how marvelous you are.”

I give her a big hug and she blithely capers into her room, twirling with her curls framing her face. Her smile is familiar, but I do not know if it is from my youth or from the pictures I have spent hours interrogating.

Walking down the hall, I wonder how she could have smiled that smile knowing what she knew, what I now know. How could she have painted the serene pictures of the seashore, knowing the sickness to which she would succumb?

I hope the secret compartment again, smiling at my daughter’s note, but focusing on the yellow slips. How much time did she spend defining herself, choosing who she would be? I always thought these were that moment of choice, but life isn’t that simple, is it? Knowing what she did, she must have chosen who she would be every day. I will make that choice. I don’t know if I will have her strength. I am sure some days I will fail, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe some days she did too. I will try to choose to be my best self. For my past. For my present.