Apple... Tree

Many of you know from my updates on facebook and twitter, that my days/weeks are spent in care and visits to my ailing mother. (story here)

Her life has been one far beyond anything I could ever hope to cover here, and she has remained a woman that to this day, is intriguing and unpredictable.

One constant, however, and all six of her children would agree, is the very first image we see in our minds when we think of her.

Fashion hound.

In a lace-up number on the far right.

 Fashion queen.

 

The one looking straight at the camera.

Fashion slave?

She is on the right, and her beautiful face here kills me.

  Never.

In soft grey with spring green underneath. Never would have thought of that.

She was always one dressed in what she found to be fashionable, and her taste? Seeing her from my child's eyes convinced me that you are born with style know how and if not, you can try to learn it, but it is an essence, a predisposition and a whimsical gift that you recognize instantly on someone as innate or *book-learned.*

The soft grey suit again, this time paired with a confident stare.

My mother was not *book-learned* with her sense of style. Had any of us ever had the chance to skip into her dreams at just the right timed moment, we'd find her floating in gowns and sheaths straight from the pages of Vogue magazine.

From a time when Red Revival, gold hoops, and two hair combs were all you needed.

19 years old in a classic plaid skirt and bored stance.

The brothers as handsome as their sister.

My mother is on the left in black and a strand of pearls, my father is crouched below. My aunt looks on.

My mother on the left, in three different plaid patterns, and yet... it works.

It is with this knowledge of my mother, armed with the technicolor memories of her platform sandals and silk neck scarves, that make me smile when I walk into her room where she is now, in an assisted living center, and she looks up to see me arriving in ankle cuffed jeans, a black T shirt, Converse tennis shoes, and her first words to me are "Your pants, they could be farmer's. And is that T shirt your husband's? Are you here without earrings and how pale you look with no lipstick."

I will miss this. 

And more than missing these words, I will miss the voice that reminds me of the stock I come from.

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