A friend, a retired nurse, was keeping watch when her ninety-plus-year-old mother was about to breath her last. The mother, who had not been coherent for some days, was either unconscious or sleeping deeply when she suddenly roused herself, looked closely at the daughter, uttered the words "you need rouge," and died.
This story is self-explanatory but nevertheless I feel compelled to embark on a course of no doubt supererogatory explications. The mother expresses a variety of emotions: some positive, some not so good. Primarily she is affectionate and protective. She wants her daughter to take care of herself and be her best, so she proposes a practical cosmetic enhancement. But at the same time, she is intrusively judgmental, because the statement "you need rouge" clearly finds the daughter deficient and in need of cosmetic enhancement.
The mother is also impolite -- but only in the way that people who know each other intimately can sometimes be unmannerly. This particular mother wouldn't speak nearly so frankly to anyone in the world but her own daughter. In addition, she's competitive. "You need rouge" means not only "you're pallid, you need help," but also hints at "I never needed rouge."
It's a humorous anecdote, because it's about the eternal continuity of mothering. Even at the moment of death, the mother remains entirely and unequivocally maternal. The phrase "you need rouge" also makes us smile because it displaces other last words -- words of wisdom or serenity or love -- that we might anticipate or for which we might hope.
And what about the daughter? Was she, or should she be, pleased, resigned, offended, amused?
Comments