Laugh Lines

48 (Sept 20)
Write about wrinkles - yours or on someone's face, or maybe your character's. What stories wrinkles can tell?
OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share. Out of the Writers Closet Rise and Write is an on line writing community hosted by the talented Natalia Lialina.  Visit to learn ore and join in  It has been incredibly fun and a great learning experience.  I''m continuing to work on my short story, or potentially building it out to a book.  Here was the last excerpt: 

Kara studied her face in the mirror in the hospital bathroom.  Not to be for her age.  Even with the years she spent in the summer sun, she was adamant about sunscreen well before anyone was preaching the gospel of it.  She also liked to read outside, so found that a shaded reading spot, thanks to the benefits of a beach umbrella, didn't give her headaches lie the sunshine, so she could experience the best of all summer worlds. heat, sun, and endless days for reading.The only signs of wrinkles were a single crease when she looked sternly at her face, furrowing her brows, and a touch as she smiled-laugh lines. Her own mother looked older than her years all the while Kara was growing up, though she never thought so herself.  She held onto her youth, wearing swimming suits in the summer meant for younger women, and .was more apt to buy her clothes at the Gap than at Chico's. Kara laughed in her head at that, as it wasn't entirely true, but her mother was always quick to jump on the clothing trend, even now as the grandmother of grown and near grown grand children.  Even this morning, as Kara was frantically trying to help get her mother dressed, her mother insisted on wearing one of her new long maxi  skirts, very impractical for a woman with balance issues and prone to tripping. 

Kara didn't try to argue.  Her mom being insistent on what she would wear was a sign that her mom was still her mom inside.  She was stubborn, and inappropriately dressed, as Kara had always thought of her mother, and in that she was comforted.  There had been many times in the week that Kara was shocked at how quickly the memory loss and the personality changes were coming on.One day she was insisting on waiting for their father to join them for lunch, even though her had been dead for nearly a year. When Allison came with groceries, her mother through a fit about the strange lady in the kitchen stealing food from her cupboard.  She hadn't recognized her daughter in law, and thought she was taking groceries out, not putting groceries away. 

There had been rough nights as well with the heart disease. Fluid was continuing to build up, and the discomfort her mother felt was painful and confusing. In her moments of clarity, she talked with both Kara and her brother about her  wishes for when she passed.  When she was struggling with memories, she cried for her own mother to help make the pain go away.  It was heart wrenching to watch, and Kara though particularly cruel to have her mothers body and mind being attacked so viciously at the same time. Kara didn't know if it was wrong or not, but she prayed for relief, prayed for her mother's suffering to end. 

When Kara went back to her mother's room,she was now in a hospital gown, her  skirt and top folded and placed in a plastic patients bag..  Kara went over to her mother and squeezed her had.  "alright mom?" she said, with a small smile."You look pretty comfy in that fancy gown."   Her mother laughed a little bit, through a grimace of pain. "I don't understand why they can't make these things look a little better  I feel like an old woman." She laughed then, and KAra could see her mom's laugh lines, and suddenly, she looked younger, more vulnerable than Kara had remembered her.