Go Put Your Lipstick On

Today, as we were driving home from our trip to New Orleans to see my oldest stepdaughter graduate from college, I was looking at Facebook and all of the wonderful pictures and sentiments everyone was posting about their mothers.  While in the midst of reminiscing about the good times I had with my own mother, who died in 1995, I remembered something she would always say to me.  This phrase inspired this poem I wrote today in the car.  In the picture above, I was between 1 to 2 years old and my mother would have been in her mid-30s. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers out there!!  Treasure every moment you have with your mother; each text, each conversation, each visit, and each hug are precious.

As a young child,

I never was wild,

Only talked too much;

Upon meeting me, I was mild.

 

My mother was classy,

Never sassy,

A true June Cleaver was she

Providing etiquette always to me.

 

Anytime we would exit the house to leave,

Never a wrinkle on her sleeve,

Her lips were adorned with a rosy hue

I know and believe.

 

As I got older,

I became bolder

With a hint of a powdery mask on my face

So, I wouldn’t look colder.

 

As a teen,

I would feel I was living the dream

To be with my friends on the scene;

However, my mother would notice

My makeup being lean.

 

Go put your lipstick on…

 

She repeated this phrase

With my rolling eye gaze,

But in a haze,

I would do what she says.

 

Getting into the car,

Not even to go very far,

She would always want me to be a star,

 

Go put your lipstick on…

 

Once I lived out and about on my own

Because I thought I was grown,

I would always remember my mother telling me

 

Go put your lipstick on…

 

Only a few years later she became ill,

And against her will,

She passed onto something greater still.

 

When we came into view of her slumbered state,

I wouldn’t relate

For many reasons and not believing this was her fate.

 

Her face had never seemed so colorless,

It seemed like a dream,

Her lips so pale,

Not even a sheen.

I knew there was something that had to be done,

This last one,

I told the man,

 

Go put her lipstick on…

 

Until this day,

Twenty-two years since she went away,

Every time I walk out of the house,

I can hear her say,

 

Go put your lipstick on…