He sent the letter in. I got a letter back. I was nominated as one of North Dakota’s Beautiful Women. But this isn’t about physical beauty - it’s about beauty of the Soul, and if you think I’m being sappy or trite, well, I’m not. Every woman was named for her particular Beauty. Deb Dawson is the Beauty of Love, Christy from Bowman is the Beauty of Service. I am the Beauty of Devotion. Mine is the story of my mother, and to her I dedicate 100% of this story, because without her, there would be no story.
It is the story of the last year of her life, when I would go to Bismarck when Dad called. When they needed me. And I would come. It’s the story of pain, of the difficulty of leaving my 8 year old and husband and being separated for a week at a time. It’s the story of not knowing whether this day would be the day my mother would die, knowing that day was approaching. It’s the story of wanting to be in two places at the same time, feeling guilty about the one when you’re with the other. It’s the story of sitting with my mother for 12 hours in the hospital, just sitting quietly, holding her hand or stroking her hair, because she didn’t want to be alone. It’s the story of the 3AM hospital nights when she’d want a cup of ice water and I physically didn’t think I could do any more, yet I did one more thing. It’s the story of loving somebody so completely that you would do anything for them. It’s the story of loving someone so completely that you DID do everything for them. It’s the story of no regrets, of making hard decisions that you know you need to make. It’s the story of service to others, and of giving yourself unconditionally to caring for another. It’s the story of WANTING to care for another.
Tammy’s writing an article for the Forum, and came over today to interview me. I poured her a cup of gunpowder green tea (of course I did!), and we chatted out in the back sunroom, door closed against construction noises, my 10 year old and his friend, my 22 year old’s beautiful guitar playing. “What do you think this project means?” she asked me. I spoke of not only unrealistic beauty expectations for women, but FAKE representations, airbrushed and Photoshopped images bombarding us daily, reminding us that we’ll never live up to the ideal standard of beauty, no matter how hard we try. I spoke of the beauty of aging, and how I think I’m more beautiful the older I get, and how I lie and tell people that I’m older than I actually am. I told her I want to meet the 21 other women, see them, hug them, look at their beauty, just be near them. This is powerful, this project. It’s powerful for the whole world because it’s not bashing what IS, but showing what’s possible and real and true. And that’s really beautiful to me.