Proof

On our way out to dinner, my mother scrutinizes me, and frowns.

That's never good news.

"I don't like the shade you paint your mouth," she says. To her daughter who is pushing 40.

I think, "Maybe i go now and never return, and you'll never have to put up with my mouth again in any shade."

And i fume for hours.

It's day 6 visiting my parents in Asia and certainly not the first disapproval my mother has voiced. First she didn't like how my t-shirt gets bunched up under my purse strap. Then she didn't like how my shorts turn into an accordion after hours of sitting. Next she didn't like how loose-fitting my spaghetti strap tank top was. (I'm guessing loose-fitting translates into too much skin.)

A spaghetti strap top that, incidentally, is a big hit with RJ. Which incidentally is not even among my most revealing.

She has also interfered with what temperature i set the guest room thermostat at and how i air-dry my towels.

Have i mentioned i am pushing 40?

The days before i departed from the States, RJ kept reminding me, "When you mother puts you down, remember that i love you and that i think you are beautiful."

That has helped, no doubt. Until day 6 apparently. I ponder all this and am near tears.

It never takes long before my mother turns me into a preteen at best.

Through the evening i can't even look at her. I focus on the nephews. I appreciate the framed print of a Van Gogh painting in my brother's hotel room. I try to simmer down.

As the night progresses i again witness my parents' deterioration. Their response time is not what it used to be. You often catch them not in the moment for no apparent reason. In the underground parking elevator, there's only one floor to go: up. My mother pushes the only logical button and then doubts herself, "Where are we going?" When asked a yes-or-no question such as "Do you have the key?", they would repeat the operative word, as if it requires introspection and profound assessment.

They're aging, like it or not.

If my mother has crossed me, in an hour or less it wouldn't even occur to her. It wouldn't have mattered.

She is flawed and in her own world. She always has been. It was just not as easy to detect before.

We all have flaws. Just because she is more keen in seeing mine and more relentless in pointing them out and more intolerant of them...

Wait, where was i going with this?

Having returned from dinner and her fancy garb off, my mother sits and watches previously recorded programming like a wide-eyed fawn, totally engrossed. Happy.

My mother is seldom happy.

Feeling compassion as a fellow human, i celebrate her happiness and forgive her for the hurt.

In the guest room where i'm staying i find a dusty bottle of Two Girls Brand Florida Water, a popular eau de parfum in the first half of the 20th century. I approach my mother to inquire to whom it used to belong (for surely it's not my mother's).

"It was your grandma's," replies my mother, hardly turning away from the TV.

My grandma, my mother's mother, who is now dead. Whose funeral i never made it to.

I try to pry more but realize it is not the right time.

"But i'm interrupting your TV viewing," i conclude with a smile as i step away.

"Yes, you are," responds my mother, also with a smile.