“I should have called you,” she said. “I should have come looking for you.”
“You could have.”
“I know.”
For once, there was no excuse.
Only an apology.
The next morning, Dad had placed several makeup products on the kitchen counter.
“I thought Jared could show you how to use these,” he told Mom.
Mom immediately became uncomfortable.
I looked at her.
“Do you want me to?”
Dad answered first.
“She hasn’t tried any of it.”
“I asked Mom.”
Mom shook her head.
“No.”
Dad looked surprised.
“But that’s why you’re here.”
“No,” I said. “That’s why you brought me here.”
Mom nodded.
She didn’t want someone else deciding what she should look like.
That was the moment Dad finally began to understand.
Helping someone doesn’t mean making decisions for them.
Over the next several weeks, I visited Mom regularly.
Sometimes we talked.
Sometimes we drank coffee.
Sometimes we simply sat together.
I didn’t try to change her appearance.
I didn’t tell her how she should feel.
I waited until she was ready.
One afternoon, Mom stopped in front of a mirror.
“Can you turn it around?” she asked.
I turned the mirror toward the wall.
Dad appeared in the hallway.
“Hiding it isn’t going to help,” he said.
Mom looked at him.
“I’m not hiding from you. I’m taking my time.”
Dad became quiet.
A few days later, Mom asked me to turn the mirror back.
She looked at herself for several seconds.
Then she said, “Not yet.”
I turned it around again.
She smiled.
For the first time, she was making the decision herself.
Eventually, Mom came to my apartment and asked if we could try makeup.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
She pointed toward the area along her jaw.
“Maybe soften this. But don’t cover everything.”
“Your choice.”
I worked carefully and stopped several times to ask how she felt.
When I finished, she looked in the mirror.
“I look different.”
“You are different now,” I said. “That doesn’t mean you’re less yourself.”
She smiled.
Then she wiped away part of the makeup.
“I want some of it off.”
“Okay.”
She removed some of the coverage herself.
Then she looked again.
“I want to go downstairs like this.”
That evening, she sat at the dinner table with Dad.
He looked at her and started to comment on her appearance.
Mom gently stopped him.
“I need you to stop deciding whether I look right.”
Dad nodded.
“Okay.”
It wasn’t a perfect moment.
