Stillmeadow Friends

Dear Susan...

I wanted to share with you this picture of my Mom, Lily Elizabeth Austin. My Mom (my Grandmother) is 84 years old and she lives in Ontario.

When the world thinks of beauty today, it is the young firm bodies with bronze tans and flawless skin. Beauty however is at the other end of the spectrum. True beauty is within the very heart and soul. It's something that many times is only "seen" when you know the person. Sometimes, you see it many years later.

When I was younger Susan, I never thought of Mom as being "beautiful"...she was just Mom. She was however a very attractive woman. Each week Mom visited the "Beauty Parlor". I love that name don't you?? It evokes a picture in the mind of one walking in...trampled and trod upon by the world and then emerging a time later the picture of loveliness. Ahh...a gentler time our childhoods.

Today we rush and scramble for a "stylist" to do a quick "cut and run". Oh, not so with my Mom and her hairdresser. It was an "event", and not to be taken lightly. I will always hold a picture in my mind of my Mom coming home with her "do"...beaming. Before bedtime, she would carefully wrap her head in a net hoping that it would "hold" until the next day when she and my Papa were going here or there. Sometimes she would have me help her. The little nets came in what is best described as a loose envelope. You'd gingerly unfold the edges and inside would be one neat little net...spun so thin that you could barely see it once it was on. The thought of that makes me smile and I can almost feel the net in my hand and the scent of lotion and perfume mingle in my mind.

We lived alongside a railway tracks and I remember her seemingly always asking me to go for a walk down the tracks. "Just a short one" she would say. I would grumble and off we'd go. In the end she and I would have enjoyed our time together and she'd tell me about her day at the dress shop where she worked. I would tell her about school. She'd grumble because I hadn't peeled the potatoes. I'd give an excuse as to why I'd forgotten. When we'd arrived back at the house, all was right with the world.

She was thoughtful and kind and whenever I needed help with homework or hurt feelings, she was there. Looking back THAT is true beauty.

A few days ago, my Aunt, Ginger sent me a photo of my Mom. When I looked at it the first time tears were in my eyes. You see it wasn't just any picture of Mom. This was a special "glamour shot" photo. With a lovely black Boa around her neck and her hair looking like she'd just emerged from the beauty parlor, there was my Mom. She was so beautiful and so elegant.

Her smile is still as pretty as it was years ago...just a little tired here and there.

Oh Susan, isn't she pretty?? Whoever thought "just a Mom" could be so beautiful??

Love, Shelley
Ossining, NY