Dr. Sue

My mother emitted the enticing scent of Poison perfume wherever she graced.  When I was little, on weekends she would wake up without blush or lipstick-her armor off.  There was something sweet and vulnerable about her.  I found her much less intimidating without L’Oreal Footloose Fuchsia hugging her lips or cheeks.  She rarely left the house without her kajal, a dash of Maybelline Great Lash to spiff up her lashes, some Cover Girl Shape and Blush, and of course her signature bright red or magenta lips. 

On the weekends, her pale pink lips greeting my baby soft cheeks first thing in the morning was a much welcome change to the usual weekday when she would dash off to work before I’d even woken up.  I confessed to her that I preferred her without makeup because she seemed so much less scary, though I did not divulge the latter.

Barely five feet and petite, she was a force-someone to not be crossed.  Respected as much, or perhaps more than her male colleagues and a former captain in the Indian army, she could bring most people to attention.  One of my favorite memories of her is when I would be coloring with whatever pens the nurses could gather on plain copy machine paper at the nurses station while she worked and I would hear the rapid, rhythmic, and melodic click clack of her two to three inch high heels approaching.

I always thought she was beautiful and she still is.  All the women I admired in my life as a child I perceived as stunning. This includes my mother’s mother, whose name I designated Mothi Aai Malan and my first grade teacher Mrs. Collins who wore four inch stilettos to school and her light blonde hair in a high loose bun.  She, too, wore lipsticks similar to my mother but was, by nature, way softer.  Mothi Aai means older mother in Marathi, my mother’s mother tongue.  I added the Malan because I loved calling people by their first names. 

 My mom tells me that I would stand up in my crib as a fearless and bold two year old calling out “Ashok,” my father’s first name.  He was unfazed by my name for him, but Sergeant Sue quashed that on the spot.