Reflections

By Gayle Foster, Guest Columnist

A mirror hangs in a prominent spot in my living room. I pass it several times a day on my way to the kitchen. It is three smallish oval mirrors hinged to one another side to side, enabling one to get a side view of one’s hairdo, if desired.

The mirror belonged to my grandmother and hung in her home in a hallway at the bottom of the stairs that led to the upper bedrooms in her Cleveland house when I was a little girl. I remember standing on a small stool to peer at my own young self all those years ago.

I like to imagine my grandmother adjusting her hat in the mirror before heading out to church or shopping. I don’t remember her ever leaving the house without a hat.

I visualize my mother checking her face in the mirror before running out with her friends, making sure her lipstick was just right and maybe pinning a stray curl back with a bobby pin. Certainly she spent an extra moment in front of the mirror before leaving her parents’ home for the last time prior to getting married back in 1940.

The tradition continued as I took one last peek on my wedding day 57 years ago before heading to the church to step into my future.

The next thing I knew I had a teenage daughter of my own double-checking her image before going on her first date with the boy she would later marry, though she didn’t realize it at the time.

All of a sudden there was another little girl asking to be held up to the mirror in grandma’s house so she could see herself.

She is now a young woman with a serious boyfriend. Could there be yet another generation waiting to peer into the depths of the mirror where all those images of the past are stored?

I like to imagine there is some way all those images of the women in my life, even my young self, could speak to me, that they’re hidden in the depths of time and space, offering all I have ever needed in the way of advice, solace, assurance and peace as I muddle through life today.

While I’m imagining, I can almost see other family members passing by, not necessarily adjusting a hat or necktie, but maybe...my grandfather, of course, and likely my uncles as teenagers heading out to a party or movie with friends, hair all Brylcreemed and combed in place for a night out. And later in military garb when World War II called.

If only this old mirror could talk. Oh, the stories it holds. The reflections it has to offer.

I can only imagine.

Gayle lives in Medina and is a regular columnist for the Medina Weekly.