Rose's Reverie - Part One

A kaleidoscope of colors were fading into focus as Rose struggled to keep her eyelids open.  This is what her days, nights, and everything in between had come to - the inability to fight and overwhelming desire to simply close her eyes and go to sleep.  1

Soon Rose felt a silky smoothness at her fingertips and found herself sitting amongst plump, plush pillows in the middle of her grandmother's  canopy bed.  Gramma Gladys was gazing at her own reflection in vanity mirror.  She was a striking woman whose regal English nose, high cheekbones, and cream colored complexion drew a sharp contrast to her deeply set cobalt blue eyes.  Her melodious voice filled the air with gaiety as she began to sing a sassy jazz tune playing on the radio.  Gramma Gladys was a well endowed woman whose ample bosom dominated a four foot ten inch frame and much of her apparel had to be tailor made in order to fit properly.2

Tonight Gramma Gladys was wearing a chic powder blue satin dress.  Matching accessories and a mink stole lay atop the canopy bed waiting to be donned.  She heisted first one leg then the other, up on a foot stool,3

licked her middle fingers and thumbs and pressed them them against the black seams of her stockings; smoothing and straightening the lines from ankle to thigh.  Her thick, glossy, auburn hair was fashionably long and fell to her shoulders in rippling waves as she brushed it the required 100 strokes.4

Rose had adored her grandmother, and each moment spent watching her primp for a night out on the town, had left and indelible mark in her memory.  Rose was impatiently waiting for the next step of her process in transformation.  Like clockwork, Gladys sat in front of her mirror, legs crossed at the knee, and carefully applied her ruby red lipstick.  She gently blotted her lips with a tissue, turned to Rose and said, "Does it look even?"  "Yes Gramma" Rose replied.  It had always struck Rose as odd that her grandmother would then say, "Don't ever wear lipstick honey, it ruins the natural color of your lips."  Little did Gramma know of her clandestine trips to the bedroom where she practiced the art of lipstick application in preparation for her grand day!  Soon Gramma Gladys was securing her hat to her head with jeweled hair pins.  "How beautiful she is," Rose thought as she stroked the mink laying in her lap.  Before she knew it, Gramma scooped her up in her arms and gave her a big hug and kiss, leaving, as always; an imprint of red on her cheek.  You see, Rose wanted nothing more than to be just like the grandmother she adored.5

As a result of continual prodding, Rose s's mother allowed her to wear clear lip gloss at the age of twelve.  By age fourteen Rose wouldn't dream of leaving the house without her lipstick on.  Her long brown hair had auburn highlights and was thick and shiny like her gramma's - no doubt because she adhered to the 100 strokes day and night ritual.6

As if emerging from a foggy morning mist, Rose slowly raised her head trying to reorient.  Was she awake, dreaming, or simply in a dimension that knew no boundaries?  As her eyes began to focus she found herself sitting in a wheelchair in front of a mirror.  Rose was 87 years old and her face was weathered with life's learning lines.  Many of the nurses said she didn't look a day over 70.  Compared to some, maybe not, but her body had betrayed her.  Crippling arthritis had robbed her of the use of her hands.  Hands which had once helped others like herself. Hands that had tenderly caressed her children and grand babies.  Hands which were rung in grief at the loss of her mother, siblings, and eventually two of her precious children.  Pretty, petite hands that use to apply lipstick with ease, now lay shriveled and useless in her lap.  Rose couldn't help but wonder if her grandmother had been right.  There was no color to her lips.  Was it from years of lipstick use or simply aging's pervasive pallor?7