You're so pretty

The last words my mother ever said to me were, "You're so pretty." She then slipped into a coma and died ten days later. The thing is, when she was alive, she said those very words to me all the time. It would truly hurt her feelings if I ever put myself down in front of her.

Cut to: not yet three months after her death. I feel like my body has betrayed me, in the most excruciating way. I could not get pregnant naturally, as most women can. I had to undergo a very physically and emotionally grueling cycle of in vitro fertilization. And it worked. I became pregnant. And then my body failed me again. The embryo died inside me. It was like I had planted a rosebush in a pile of sand.

I want to be angry at myself. I want to look in the mirror and say terrible things about how I failed at the most basic human capability. But something is stopping me.

Yesterday, while cleaning out my mother's suitcase, I found one of her lipsticks. It was barely used. I'm pretty sure I bought it for her, because she hated to buy makeup for herself. I put the lipstick in my own makeup bag. And this morning, as I looked in the mirror, I saw my reflection and the face of the person who has kept me from what I want most in the world.

But it is also the face my beloved mother treasured so much she used her last words on this earth to complement it. And so I put on my mother's lipstick, looked at myself in the mirror, and said, "You're so pretty."