FOR THOSE WE LOVE

February is a month for hearts and loves.  For EVERYONE we love in fact. It is important to hold dear to our hearts the important people in our lives, those who have given us love for the sake of giving, for nothing in return except maybe a thank you and a smile for recognition of their love.

Still in winter, the other evening I finally had the chance to sit down and casually flip through a magazine.  Our lives get so hectic, I really had not had this simple luxury for quite some time, so I relished the moment, while balancing a huge March issue of Harper's Bazaar with Drew Barrymore on the cover~

 Harper's Bazaar March 2013

I am admiring the fashions, the advertisements, the content and overall having a good time, thinking this is a really heavy magazine, I'll have to browse through it several times, not just in one sitting!

Going from back to front, as is my usual norm of page browsing, I consider the Lancome ads,  look for Ted Baker (lots of Ralph Lauren!) and suddenly get to the front.

Then, an image struck me like never before.  I see the visage of a beautiful, inquisitive woman who is peering outside of the pages and who is a very close likeness of my dear mother-in-law, Carol. The hair is different, but everything else spoke of her, her beauty, her high cheeks and pointed chin, perfect straight nose, fair skin, soft brown eyes, peaked thin brow, cupid bow lips.  Even the coloring, she loved pink, and came into fruition as a woman in the 1960s, hence the black and white check dress that speaks to her generation of 1960s pop and London craze~

Harper's Bazaar March 2013

Carol loved Harper's Bazaar, and if I showed it to her she would modestly say I was so silly to think the woman on the cover looks like her, but give that flowing mane a Vidal Sassoon chiseled chin length cut, give her flashing black hair, and presto! There is my beloved Carol as I knew her.  The woman I would go to professional tennis matches with (we had front row seats and saw Rod Laver play, it was difficult for him to keep his eyes off her!), the one who could whistle a tune like a little bird, with vibrato, the one who gave me her beautiful son, and we became fast friends as she could never give him up. Why lose a son? Gain a daughter, instead! This was an intelligent, strong, loving person, whose beauty from the inside manifested outwardly, the mission of this site. 

Carol was a fit beauty before her time, she taught me so much, and was the only mother out there who wanted me to date her son ( that's another, slightly complicated story!).  We first met at a high school graduation,  and much later it turns out we both remarked how much we liked one another, "Ronnie, you should take Connie out!" and I was thinking, "Wow, she's really nice, I hope I see her again!" Well, I saw her for 29 more years, we all become older, she did change as the mind failed her after a while, and so on, but the important take away here is that we remain the same people as to who we are, our own identities do stay intact.  Along this journey we have to get through the rougher, transitional times of life, and then, we are given the gift to grow even stronger and discover even deeper meaning in our lives. Carol gave me that gift for which I am very grateful.

This visage on the front cover it turns out is also of Drew Barrymore, another March issue, who as front view looks very different from our Carol, yet this one three quarter angle speaks directly to who my mother-in-law not only was, but still is. I am just as pleasantly surprised to be writing this post as it was for me to be struck so unawares of the beauty on that front cover that encompasses one of the important "those" whom we love. 

Stay well and stay true, and many thanks to Drew for two great covers!