Proud Mary

by Cathy

Last Friday, I attended a memorial service of a woman whom I wasn't close to, but had made an impression on me so much so, that I maintained contact with her throughout the last 11 years. Everyone referred to her as Mary Kay. She was 88 years old.

Mary was the receptionist at the very first magazine I ever went to work for. The office had a colorful crew of employees to say the least. We always joked about how we should have written a sitcom television pilot about our office - and how it would be one of a kind. Mary was the office bulldog - the tough-as-nails yet always diplomatically composed woman you would get on the phone when you called our offices. She handled the chaotic, often crazy office antics with such eloquence and grace.

She was about 76 years old when I met her - of course I had to figure this out because she never revealed her age. There was never a day that you would catch Mary without her impeccable application of makeup, manicured nails and perfectly coiffed 'do. Her stylishly chic clothes were always spot on - a great fit and always pressed. Oftentimes - only if really necessary - she used a cane, but had it decorated with sumptuous scarves to jazz it up. And her voice. What can one say about Mary's voice. Her low, raspy yet smooth dulcet tones were as unique to our office as she was. One caller thought she was a bombshell divorcee that smoked two packs a day. She called everyone 'dear'. She never gossiped or had a bad thing to say about anyone. And when someone complained to her about another person, her answer would always be a simple, "It's in their nature, dear."

I had kept in touch with Mary every holiday season when I would mail her a holiday card with a picture of my girls (she was never married, nor had children) and I would always await that phone call a few days later. "Cathy, dear. I got your card and your girls look gorgeously divine. Straight out of a European film noir." She had the most uncanny ability to string together beautiful words about anything, on the spot. Her mind was razor sharp and she was very quick witted up until the day she died, from what I heard. 'A thriving mind in a place of diminished ones' was how her nursing home caretaker referred to her. She attended plays. She wrote poetry (you would always get one on your birthday) and screenplays. She never watched television yet knew everything that was going on. Up until a couple of years ago, she had me update her resume and was calling me to see if I knew of a job for her - she even wanted to take a computer class to 'be up with the times'. She was a determined, feisty hardballer who was fiercely independent.

I sat at her memorial service awestruck, taking in her early years from the collage of pictures pasted methodically on a large white posterboard. (Funny how one's life can fit neatly on a large posterboard.) She was gorgeous. She could have easily been a movie star - the epitome of glamour and sophistication at every turn - her hair blowing beautifully in the wind on the Eiffel Tower over Paris or climbing whitewashed steps in her caftan mini in France.

Two particular pictures caught my attention because they were positioned starkly next to each other: one of her and her two sisters in their 20s, she wearing an off-the-shoulder, black cocktail dress revealing her youthful decolletage and hair flowing like a black mane to one side, she struck an eerie resemblance to Greta Garbo; the other was a recent picture of her, of course primped to the nines, yet hunched over in a chair, lipsticked mouth ajar, veined hands decorated with large, fabulous accessories, reaching up towards her grand-nephew. The juxtaposition of these two pictures was startling; startling at how the vibrancy of youth is fleeting; a look at how we once were, and how we will become. However, I also knew that inside that body, ravaged by age and its side effects, laid the mind and heart of a 20-year old - in every sense of the word.

Rest in peace, dear Mary. Heaven is now surely a more fabulous place with you there.