My Senior Picture - ode to Pam

My mom and I did not get along very well in high school.  I never became the Shirley Temple or the Tennille of her dreams or a shining example of her brilliance.  I was angry and sullen and stayed away from home quite a lot.

I really wanted to take a nice senior picture and I needed my mom.  I wanted to feel pretty and I did not know how.  But she was unavailable to me.  Maybe our wounds were too big to have healed. I don't know.  I was emotionally overwrought.  I had gone to the same school system since I was in third grade.  In my senior year we moved to another school zone and I knew nobody.  I felt alone and certainly not very pretty.

I decided to borrow the car and visit my friend Pam before I had to take pictures.  Don't know what it is but really I never have to tell her anything, she just figures it out.  She curled my hair and did my makeup. I think my hair was flat because we were without AquaNet....a must in the Humid South.  She let me borrow some big fake pearl earrings that I just thought were beautiful.  And she made me feel beautiful and loved and cared for.

I may not Be beautiful or even pretty but when I look at that picture, I can see there is a smile there.  It is not a Mona Lisa smile.....because I know from whom it came.