Mirrors

Beauty

Chapter Sixteen

Beauty

Again and again, I had been bombarded by demands to change the way I look or to change the way I acted. “Beauty is everything,” my own mother would say. My grandma would pull at my hair, raise it into a high ponytail. My dad would tell me to clean after myself. When a single object lay on my bedroom floor, my mother would yell and pout all day. She didn’t have to clean it up; it was after all my job. If she didn’t like she was seeing, all she had to do was close my bedroom door.

My mom and her family had always been so close. They would know every little bit about me. A lot of the times, they would point out my flaws as if I hadn’t known already. My cousins would playfully put makeup on me, even with my loud protests. They would look at every guy friend I had and immediately assume that I liked him.  My aunts and uncles would teach me table manners when they themselves were pigs sitting at the dining table.

They were part of my family, but I wished they’d left me alone.

I could say that they were the very reason why I had an askewed view of what beauty was like. These very thoughts made me feel ashamed of myself. Were they right? Were they wrong? No one could answer that. I could even say that they were right at some points, but a lot of them I disagree on. Why would I even try to be a ‘lady’ when I could be strong and ready to defend myself. I could take care of myself; no need to find a millionaire husband.

I loved them to death. They made my childhood a joyous experience. But the strains they chained me throughout my growing up.

Beauty isn't everything; I should have told myself that a long time ago.

I found myself in Grandmother’s bedroom; she was brushing her hair as she stared at an antique, hand-mirror. It was silver, wrapped with vines and flowers sculptured around the frame and handle. Grandma wore a long, floral dress. Her wrinkles sagged, but she kept them up with a content smile. Along the walls of her bedroom hung pictures of her childhood with Grandpa. They captured each smile, freezing each moment in a tiny frame. Grandmother Katrina was wild and independent, travelling every corner of the world. I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be a free bird.

She gained weight if you compared her to herself in the scattered photos. Her spine curved further, giving her a slight hunch along her back. The muscles along her arms were eaten away; loose skin hung along each limb. She was a sweet old lady, ready to help anyone as much as she can. Though she had changed over the years, I always thought that she was beautiful in many different ways.

Little Irene suddenly ran into the bedroom. She wasn’t so little anymore. Under her thin t-shirt showed the emerging seeds of womanhood. Her hips began to widen. Her face elongated. The long luscious hair she kept tidy was chopped into a bob with bangs, much like the flappers in the 20s. Part of her face was muddy; she had a rough day playing with a couple of neighborhood friends. Grandma raised a brow at the sight of her coming into the bedroom and closing the door behind her.

Grandma Katrina pulled a piece of tissue paper from a box and started wiping away the dried mud. She smiled as she rubbed away as much as she can. I walked toward the both of them, standing behind little Irene—she was almost a foot as tall as me. I placed my hands on her shoulders, feeling their small curve. Grandma Katrina was about my height: 5 feet and 4 inches tall. Her gentle hands skimmed across my ghostly hands, going pass through them. Little Irene was the only person I could touch in these memories; it would have been fun to hug Grandma Katrina even when she wouldn’t notice a thing. It was only then that I began to miss the warmth of her touch, the sweet lullabies she sang to me, and the soft patting she gave to me while I went to sleep. I hadn’t seen her in years, not until the ‘great move’. I always feared that she would someday slip away while I was hundreds of miles away from her; but this unfortunate fate had been put upon me instead.

“Will you please be a little bit more careful?” Grandma Katrina pleaded after she had finished wiping away the mud, throwing away the small pile of tissue paper. “You’re growing up, hun. You might as well act like it.”

“I don’t want to grow up,” little Irene protested, crossing her arms together with a large pout on her face.

“Dear, nobody wants to grow up.”

“But why do people do it anyways?” little Irene whined.

Grandma Katrina shrugged. “Because that’s the way it has to be.”

“Well,” little Irene whined again, “I want to be like Peter Pan.”

“Peter Pan?” Grandma snickered.

“Yes; Peter Pan,” little Irene nodded. “I want to be a kid forever.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Little Irene paused, giving an awkwardly bashful smile. She had no idea how to answer that question.

“You can’t stop being a grown up,” Grandma Katrina answered for her. “And you can’t stop yourself from being a young lady.”

“Being a lady’s for girls who can’t take care of themselves,” little Irene argued.

“And who ever told you that?” Grandma Katrina demanded, infuriated.

“Jaren did.”

Grandma Katrina shook her head in disbelief. “That boy has problems. Being lady doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. It’s quite the contrary: being a lady means you’d be able to do everything for yourself, like maybe getting a job or cleaning your house. You don’t have to be stuck in the house all day, taking care of crying babies to be a lady.”

“You don’t?” little Irene asked, becoming a bit more interested.

“Nope. The first thing about being a lady is to take care of the body that God gave to you,” Grandma answered. Had I mentioned that she was a Catholic?

“That means looking presentable and pretty,” she added.

“Well, how am I going to know that I’m pretty?”

Grandma shrugged her shoulders, thinking of an answer. She walked toward the hand mirror she was staring at moments ago and handed it to little Irene. “When you could look into the mirror and tell yourself that you’re beautiful.”