Put Some Lipstick on...

Regardless of where I was or how I felt, one thing always remained constant. As reliable as time passing, as anticipated as a sunrise, its predictability was unwavering. It, I suspect, existed only in my life, and influenced me in all aspects of my life.

It began, I suspect, when I was about 14 years old and my heart began beating to its own irresponsible, erratic, slow and uninspired drummer. With its changes came a slew of physical responses from the rest of my body, trying to do its best without the benefit of the regularity of blood pumping to fuel it! The effects of blood getting to my brain only sporadically, affected every organ. My blood pressure was imperceptible, and I would have been lost against the white hospital sheets except my complexion was a shade lighter and grayer. I felt like the last bit of moisture on a hot, Texas sidewalk – vaporizing and hopeless.

Every day, multiple times, I’d hear it. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. The sound came from the hallways of the hospital, growing louder with each click. The door would burst open and there, all 5 feet, 2 inches of her, would be my mother, always in a skirt and low heels, smiling and carrying the news of home to me. The curtains, had they not already been, would be raised so I could see what, nine out of ten times, would be a brick wall or some exhaust unit on the rooftop. But there would be light! Mom always brought light with her, no matter what was happening in her world or my world.

However dependable, her arrival to my room was not the one thing that followed me from those hospital rooms to my bed at home, and, eventually, 4-1/2 decades later, into my every day.

She would pause at some point, look at me for a moment, and say –

“Put some lipstick on. You’ll feel better.”

I know! Not exactly a deep philosophical remark to be written in stone and passed on through the ages. Or was it?

I know, at the time (and, if I am honest, til the day she died), I’d roll my inner eyes at her when she said it (I knew better than actually to roll my eyes at her), and then what would I do? Well, I put some lipstick on.

Did I feel better?

I can attest without any hesitation that as soon as I put the lipstick on I felt – unchanged. I remember thinking, Well, at least she feels better.

You know, sometimes, when I put lipstick on, I sat up to do it, and it inspired me to do other things while I was up, like brush my hair. I did look better, but I didn’t feel any better. I was fighting for my life, not trying to compete in a beauty pageant.

People came and went 24 hours a day. After Mom’s first visit of the day, people always were a bit chattier. I got to hear the nurses’ stories. I was attentive and – oh, man! Was my mother right, AGAIN?

You and I can look back to the Great Depression’s Lipstick Effect, we can discuss the most recent findings on the Lipstick Effect, or we can find the proof by referring to a peer-reviewed article, but, to sum it all up, Mom was right.

So, when Mom broke her hip and wrist, and landed herself in a rehabilitation hospital, the first thing I said to her when I walked in and opened her curtains was, Put some lipstick on, you’ll feel better. She muttered something and blatantly rolled her eyes at me – and then she put her lipstick on and, while she was up, brushed her hair, and faced her day of hours of therapy.

The doctors were amazed that Mom was up and walking four months earlier than expected. She and I both knew that the Lipstick Effect is far more powerful than imaginable. Her doctor looked at her and said, “We need to know your secret, and bottle it.” Mom and I looked at each other, knowing it is already in a tube! And then...

Mom put some lipstick on.