“My face is falling!”
I was in my bedroom in the cut-up house on Wilson street when I heard Fran’s voice announce this “face” issue. Fran was my baby-sitter/auntie/close family friend.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Fran!” my mom replied in her usual annoyed voice.
I walked to the living room in my dirty white socks, pretending to ice skate on the wood floor, avoiding the chips and worn spots. I liked it when Fran and Nicole came over. They lived in the smaller house behind ours on the same property. Bill, our landlord, was what we now call a slumlord. Nice guy but never fixed anything. But he’s got nothing to do with Fran’s falling face.
Fran was sitting on the couch, with her three-year old daughter, Nicole, next to her. Fran leaned over a round cosmetic mirror she held in her right hand. “LOOK!”
My mom went over and stooped down to view Fran’s face from the same angle. “Well, when you look down! Of course!”
“Yours doesn’t do that!” Fran said.
My mom grabbed the mirror and sat down in the chair by the couch. “YES IT DOES!” She bent over the mirror, grabbing at jowls that were not there. Her face was not falling yet.
“No! Your face is fine. Mine is falling!” Fran said, taking the mirror back from my mom. At the time, Mom and Fran were not even 40.
Now that I am 52, I sometimes catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror when I’m bending down to pick up a towel or something off of the bathroom floor. And I understand what Fran was talking about. In that position, I have jowls that make me look like my Great Danes’ biological mom. My face is falling, or has fallen.
I was today years old when I figured out why it’s called a “Face Lift.”
