CLS Sandoval

No Other Product

 

Mary Kay Cosmetics was a huge part of my childhood. Every Monday night Mom would host a meeting either in our home or in the meeting room at the bank across the street. My sister and I would watch Family Ties and eat pizza with Dad. When the meetings were at our house, we would get to come down and pick out one or two fancy desserts that the ladies had brought for the occasion. Everyone had on their beautiful suits, red jackets, dresses, hair done up, best jewelry on and smelled of Mary Kay foundation and perfumes. Fond memories, but I never thought I would be a Mary Kay lady. The year before my mom was to retire as a National Sales Director, I overheard one of her National Sales Director friends saying that her daughter wanted to become a director before she retired.  I asked my mom if she thought it was possible for me. My mother was shocked. She never thought that I would have any interest in Mary Kay and never put the pressure on me to do it. That last year of my mother’s Mary Kay career I worked my butt off and became one of her top directors by the time that she retired.  That entire year, I envisioned Susan Johnson from Mary Kay corporate announcing in her decidedly Dallas, Texas accent, as we walked across the stage, “Please welcome National Sales Director Patricia Lane and her brand-new offspring Director Crystal Lane Swift!” While Susan Johnson wasn’t the one to announce us herself, in every other way the moment was exactly as I imagined Dallas, Texas accent and all as we walked across the stage in that Dallas Arena. My Nana was even in the audience, probably remembering when she debuted as one of my mom’s directors 30 or so years before. Later during that Seminar, I would give the farewell speech to my mom and later I would realize that I had stolen that moment from my mom’s best friend Barbara, who had always been her top Director. I earned four cars and six diamond rings from Mary Kay and then mostly stopped working my business. I’ll never use a different product. I will always love the company but working it just is not the same without my mom.

Take the Baby!

 

Through the lens of my rose colored six-year-old eyes, it was just a fun trip to Santa Monica. Little did I know that it was just one more couples’ therapy session in a nearly decade long crusade my mother had been on to save her marriage for the sake of her children. This time, on the way to the therapist’s office Mom had decided to bring her children and her mother in addition to her husband. So the five of us waited for the walk signal to cross the six lanes of Los Angeles traffic. The curb was tall so it was a big step down and then another big step up on the other side. Just as we were ascending on the other side of the street, Mom tripped holding Tiffany in her arms. My one-year-old baby sister cried, and my mom started screaming, “Take the baby take the baby!” Nana looked at her daughter and yelled, “Trish, get up!”

Dad offered his hand

Would not leave his wife down there

In front of her mom

The End of My Mother

 

I thought the hardest part of this Easter this year would be Pastor Craig being retired.  Of course, I was wrong. When I get teary eyed, my seven-year-old tells me to pretend my mom isn’t dead—she’s just far away and we just can’t see her.  In a way, I know that this is true. Mom is in a better place.  Barbara says you can experience more than one emotion at once.  I feel peace that my mom knew she was joining Jesus, her own mother, her grandmother, her dogs, and other loved ones. Gratitude that I got to have her as my mom.  Disappointed that my children don’t get more time with their nana; I don’t get more time with her.  Deep despair at our physical separation.

 

The night before she died, when my mother was done responding verbally, my sister and I gave her those last doses of medicine, promising that it would help her feel better.  Without opening her eyes, she knitted her eyebrows and lips the way she did whenever she gave a wise crack.  We smiled slightly, that Mom would always be Mom.  Sometime while we were sleeping, she slipped away from this broken world to paradise.