Tips I learned from Liam (plus a few from Mary Kay)

I thought about writing about all the things I recently learned from a Mary Kay beauty consultant. For example, if you don't wash your face for one night, your face ages somewhere between 7 and 50 days. (This is partially due to the way pores expand throughout the day and how quickly skin cells die). Always apply your moisturizer in upward motions on your face. Never pull your face down, it adds wrinkles. There is one exception and that is when you are applying foundation. I think. Also, make-up does expire, although it seems that most people actually already know this.

But, what I really want to write about is what I cannot stop thinking about. Liam's service. Liam.

On Valentine's Day, Prince Liam was remembered at a memorial service that carried a majestic air. Liam's friends, FDNY firefighters of Engine 1, Ladder 24 (and others from across NYC) stood guard outside of St. Francis of Assisi Church in midtown Manhattan. After the choir sang, "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep," the firefighters proceeded into reserved pews. Later, one firefighter of Engine 1, Ladder 24, where Liam has an honorary locker, spoke about Liam and the "firefighter ice-cream" that Liam used to eat at the firehouse. Along with another fireman, this speaker presented Liam's parents with an FDNY helmet. The choir included members of the cast of Lion King (Tshidi Manye, famous voice of Rafiki, among them).  I've seen the Lion King (twice) but I didn't get goosebumps until Manye's renditions of "Circle of Life" and "He Lives in You" on Monday.

Everyone wore orange, Liam's favorite color.  There were orange scarves, orange ties (Liam thought everyday was a good day to wear a tie), orange jackets, orange nail polish, orange dresses, orange headscarves. The flowers were orange. Bob Woodruff (ABC News Anchor and family friend); Liam's surgeon, Dr. Michael LaQuaglia (chief of Memorial Sloan-Kettering's pediatric surgical service); and a nurse practitioner from Liam's medical team spoke. Dr. LaQuaglia said that Liam was the only child that yelled his name across the playroom and the only one who could pronounce it right. Linda, the nurse practitioner, remembered how Liam and his sister used to claim to be "scooter-walking" when she reprimanded them for riding their scooters through the hallways of Sloan. Gretchen, Liam's mother, who spoke last, said that as far as she knew, there was never a rule about scooters until Liam came to Sloan. As Gretchen talked about Liam - how he was curious about everything (machines, medicine, gems, people) and how he made friends wherever he went (hospitals, offices, museums, school, playgrounds) - members of the choir wept silently. Most of them had probably never met Liam or Gretchen before.

Just a few avenues away, a reception followed the service. On the twelfth floor of Studio 450, cookies, Liam's favorite food, lined the counters and filled the table tops. Take-out containers, like the ones found in Chinese restaurants, were piled near the cookies. More people talked about Liam's scooter, his curiosity and inquisitiveness, his ability to draw people in and make them feel comfortable and loved. Another mother talked about the way Liam could make his classmates feel at home during play dates he hosted at Sloan, even if it was the first time his friends were visiting the hospital. And about his Superman costume, and the time he sang the ABC's at a Halloween party after he was discharged from the hospital that day. The mother of Liam's best friend, (a girl from school), stood in front of all the guests and talked about the adventures Liam and her daughter went on, and how Liam liked to buy her daughter jewelry.

"Liam had good instincts," the young girl's mother said, smiling.

Liam didn't understand the concept of later. If not now, when? he always asked one of his teachers, who could not completely hold back her tears as she stood in front of the podium and talked about Liam. Before speaking, the teacher had promised Gretchen, Liam's mom, that she would try not to cry.

Instead of sharing the Mary Kay beauty tips I learned, I'll leave you with a few things I learned from the service, reception, and Liam:

- If you care about someone, tell them.
- Be curious. Ask questions. Learn.
- Make friends in unlikely places.
- Complain less.
- Dress up when you want to.
- Make others feel special.
- Approach the world with an open mind.  It will open itself to you.
- Do because you can.
- Now is a good time.
- Don't let the rules keep you from scootering. And scooter-walk when you have to.
- As Gretchen says, love like Liam.

fitting room etiquette

I am not going to talk about how annoying it is to go into a dressing room (as a customer or employee) to find that someone has left panty hose, tank tops, jeans, sweaters, and headbands in lumps on the floor, on top of a chair, and hanging (but not from hangers) on the hooks on the walls. Although that is quite annoying, we all already know it is not proper fitting room etiquette. This is about a piece of fitting room etiquette that is much less well-known.

The other day I was in Talbot's with my grammy in search of a white cardigan that was just like the pink one she was wearing and the t-shirts that she saw on sale in the catalog. We found the white cardigan on one of the shelves by the entrance.

"I don't know if that is the same cardigan," Grammy said.

I checked the label on the sweater she was wearing, which was hidden beneath the brown puffy North Face jacket that used to be mine, but now is Grammy's.

"Grammy, they are made out of the same materials," I said, holding one of the folded white cardigans in my arms.

"Maybe it's not the same quality," Grammy said.

"Why don't you just try it on?" I asked. "What size are you?"

"Medium, medium or small."

I am just 5'7" (on a good day) and my grammy is at least four inches shorter than me - and that is taking into account the large brown curls that sit on top of her head. Sometimes I worry that the wind or an ocean wave will blow her right over if I don't reach out and grab her hand. But Grammy says that no one needs to worry about her and that she was the tallest person in her graduating class. My uncle says she went to a school of midgets. My mom buys Grammy clothes from the petite section for Christmas and every year Grammy holds them up and says, Oh I love this, but Suzanne, I don't know if this will fit me.

I found a size-small sweater in the pile and thought I would probably be coming back for an extra small.

Ten minutes later we were walking toward the fitting rooms.

"OK, I'll wait out here," I said. I couldn't remember the last time that I had been shopping with my grammy when she tried something on. It would have taken me hours to count the minutes she had spent outside the fitting room waiting for me, though.

"You can come in," Grammy said.

She took off her coat, scarf, and pink cardigan, and was just about to slip the white cardigan over her head and on top of her tank top, when she put the white cardigan down.

"Oh, I need my cover thing," she said, and started combing her hands through her purse. She took out a small plastic bag and turned it over in her hands looking for the opening. "Can you open this?"

I pulled the bag open.  Something clear and also plastic was inside. I handed the opened bag back to Grammy and she unravelled a clear, plastic shower cap. I looked at the cap in her hands and then at her eyes.

"Oh, it's so I don't get make-up on the shirts," Grammy said. "Don't you hate when the person who tried something on before you left make-up marks?"

What make-up? I thought. Your dime-size dab of foundation cream?


Grammy placed one edge of the shower cap below her chin and pulled another edge up to her forehead, so that the shower cap covered her face from ear to ear and chin to forehead.

"Wait, you really do this? You put a shower cap over your face so you don't get make-up on the stuff you try on?"

She nodded. "Just let me know if I turn blue," she said in a muffled voice. She pulled the white cardigan over her face, slowly, though, so as to not catch the edges of the shower cap. She took the shower cap off her face. "Your aunt and cousin know I do this," she said.

Text Samantha after this to confirm that she does not think this normal and ask why she never thought to share this with me, I thought.

"OK, Gram."

Grammy tried on four or five t-shirts, different sizes and styles, before I convinced her to try a size-small from the petite section. Maybe she was tired of putting the shower cap on and taking it off so many times, maybe she just forgot, or maybe she didn't want me to stare at her in disbelief again, but she didn't place the shower cap over her face this time. After she pulled the t-shirt over her head, I noticed a smudge of beige about the size of a thumbnail on the collar.

I opened my mouth and then closed my lips. Couldn't tell her.




P.S. Thanks for the headscarf, Grammy. Talbot's isn't so bad after all..love you.

P.P.S. Valentine's Day is on Monday.  And Cookies for Kids' Cancer is just a click away... http://www.cookiesforkidscancer.org/default.asp