Twenty Years

Already, she knew I had difficult hair.

Twenty years. How can it be? She's missed so much. Bar mitzvahs. Graduations. Her eldest grandson's wedding. How she would've loved that. The big parties were her favorite. Getting dressed up. Putting on her face. There was no denying her sense of style. Twenty years. It doesn't seem possible, and yet, there you have it. Last night, when I took off my earrings, I noticed they were mismatched. All day, I walked around, wearing one earring from one pair, and one earring from another pair. Silly me. That's the kind of thing I would have called her up to share. We would've laughed so hard. She had the best laugh ever. Today, in her honor, I'll do what any mamala should do. I'll put on my face. I'll take care of others, and if I find a moment, I'll take care of myself, too. "Don't be so hard on yourself," she said, a closing remark, before she went off to that big beauty shop in the sky, with orange toenails yet. Orange. Her least favorite color. The only color her longtime nail gal had in her pocket when she made a house call to say goodbye. She wanted to do her toes one last time. We had a good laugh about the color choice, our final laugh, in fact. And as my mother faded away in her hospital bed at UCLA, one thing was abundantly clear. She wasn't happy about those orange toenails. Not happy at all. She kept looking at her toes, then looking up at me, as if to say, "Can you believe it? I'm going out with orange toenails. I hate orange." Not long after she died, she came to me in a dream, dressed entirely in orange, and imparted this message: "Be careful what color you wear when you die. That's the color you'll be stuck with for eternity." I'll keep it in mind, Mom. Promise.

 How she loved to take care of others.