A Tribute to My Mom on Her Birthday

My mom at 16. Today she turns 66.

I spent years flipping through my parents’ old high school yearbooks. My favorite page was of Bel Air High School’s most beautiful. There was crowned my mother—a brunette Glinda the Good Witch—in the middle of her subjects, first and second runner up.
          My mother’s pink tulle dress floated off her hips like a wand of cotton candy. The fitted strapless satin bodice glittered with silver and magenta sequins. The 1961 photo is black and white, and fading under thumbprints of admiring little girls, but I knew these details because the dress hung in our hall closet. At twelve it fit like a glove, with the highest pair of my mother’s heels on. Oh, how I wished she had a crown.

          My pageant career nearly ended after a disappointing run in the Eastwood High School Most Beautiful contest in the spring of 1986. It pained me that I could not follow in my mother’s gilded footsteps.         
          At 17 that pink tulle dress no longer fit, yet still I tried to become the woman who wore it and entered a preliminary competition for the Miss El Paso contest. I qualified to enter the pageant (not exactly like qualifying for the Boston Marathon or Hawaii Ironman) and set off to be like that young woman in the yearbook photo I had spent so much time admiring.

          My parents, as I can now clearly appreciate having daughters of my own, were appalled. Especially my mother, which I couldn’t understand at the time because she was the one I was trying to emulate. But they didn’t forbid me to participate; they stood back, let me live my life. 

          What happened though, wasn’t what I expected. Probably not what they expected, either. In addition to the gowns, manicures and make up, I had a free membership to a gym and access to a personal trainer. I think I was the only contestant who took advantage of it. Three times a week Dan made me lift weights; he pushed my limits with ever increasing sets and reps and committed me to the stationary bike for an hour. Through his influence I lived the lifestyle of a woman entering a body building championship, not a beauty contest. 

          The night of the pageant, my triceps spiraled from shoulders to elbow, my quads perched on my kneecaps like loaves of bread and my calves cut into a mass of muscle above the high heels I wore. But my solid body didn't impress the judges.

          If I learned something from the experience—I won’t even try to win anyone over on the virtues of beauty pageants—it’s that it introduced me to the joy of a good sweat. I realized I loved hard workouts; not because they made my body more presentable for the swimsuit competition, but because they made me feel more alive, more in touch with my authentic self. Quite the detour to find her.

  I have since run hundreds of races including seven marathons, competed in countless triathlons and two Ironman triathlons. When I cross each finish line my smile is as big as a beauty queen.
          I know my mother is relieved I didn’t go on to chase crowns—that I cut my losses early and found meaning in education, a career, and motherhood. That, too, was her influence. She was valedictorian of her high school class. She went on to have a long teaching career, she always involved herself in meaningful work and volunteer endeavors. She raised three children, taking us skiing or to the tennis court whenever she had a chance. And she can make the best lemon merengue pie that will ever touch your lips. That photo in her yearbook was just a moment in time for her. There was never a crown to keep. 

          Finishers medals are as close to a crown as I'll come. And being an athlete allows me that sense of personal accomplishment my mom hoped for me. She has always emphasized that the only judge I need to impress, is myself. 

          I still fawn over her beauty, perhaps more so now that she is in her sixties. As a mother myself, comfortably on this side of 40, I am no longer mesmerized by that 16-year-old beauty queen. Now it is more of a fist-pumping celebration of her good looks; after all, I have her genes (or at least half her genes). But I celebrate more than her long-held beauty: I celebrate that she doesn’t take a single prescribed medication, that she can still get up on water skis, that her mind is nimble, that she still embraces adventure and change.

Happy Birthday Mom. I love you.

  I want all that. I aspire to her level of health. And one other thing: To be able to make her lemon merengue pie.

Special Thanks to Yvonne Reyes, Bel Air High School Librarian, and my father for putting those prized photographs back in my possession.