red lipstick and photos
I was at my dad’s place today, visiting him with my brother Ash before he takes off back to the motherland to take care of some business. The idea of my 76 year old diabetic father traveling to the middle east in a time like this scares the shit out of me, but if there’s anyone that age to be able to handle it, it’s him.
My father’s place is interesting, lots of old books, art supplies, piles and piles of Ash’s over sized dental journals, bowls filled with fruit and pistachios, and heaps of pictures everywhere. In looking around for various things, I came across a few interesting old ones this time.
This is my mother and father from 33 years ago.
When my mother saw this , she quoted her aunt’s favorite saying about youth and beauty, which in English roughly translates to:
Even cockroaches looked beautiful in their younger days.
Then she proceeded to tell me how much I look like her , which I both can see and felt mildly offended by given the time of her comments.
Another interesting photo we came across is this one of my mother’s father when he was a toddler.
I love finding baby pictures of people in general, but this is especially neat. The back had a message on it. A message which was scratched out in an attempt to erase it.
I asked what it could’ve read, and my father responded brilliantly. He said he knew that my grandfather would write a lot of love notes to my grandmother on the back of photos and leave them for her. Their entire marriage always amazed me.
He was a decorated Iranian military general, she was only 15 when they got married. But he treated her like a princess from the first day, even teaching her how to put on makeup as she was so young when she moved in. She would tell me all the time that he’d run back into the house before leaving for a party and bring her red lipstick when she’d forget it, because he loved seeing her dressed up. These are still the stories I love hearing from my grandmother, even if she’s repeated them a zillion times. Seeing her eyes light up and daydream back in time to remember made me jealous she ever had that type of love and attachment to one person.
Given that, I’m not sure what cultural relevance this all necessarily has. Other than, I just thought it was neat and wanted to share it. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll find a man who doesn’t want me to leave the house witout my iPod.
