Happy Birthday Mom!

"How do I look?"
It was New Year's Eve and Lily was headed to a party at her friend's house. She wore a wonderfully drapey pair of rust-colored wide-leg pants paired with skinny belt -- very Katharine Hepburn, very classy. Tucked into the pants? A bright blue novelty T-shirt emblazoned broadly with the goofy-grin visages of Troy and Abed, characters on the cultish show "Community."
"I love those pants," I said. "They look great on you. But my problem is the shirt. Don't you have a nice flowy button-down?"
She paused, frowned and spun on her heels.
When I was a teenager in the '70s, I spent my babysitting money on clothes from Foxmoor (an early Forever 21) at the Mayfield Mall. My mom would wait patiently outside the dressing room as I squeezed into Dittos jeans, tight cap-sleeve Ts and glitter belts. You know, the cool stuff.
In the dressing room mirror, I worried that I looked more like Totie Fields than Shelley Hack. I parted the curtains and showed my mom.
"How does this look?"
She smiled. "Looks good to me!"
No matter what I tried on -- hot pants, micro-miniskirts, elephant leg bell bottoms, shiny polyester shirts, halter dresses -- I could count on my mom's approval. Everything looked good and nothing was ever mismatched, trashy, silly, too small or too big. It was all perfect.
I remembered this lesson -- this gift -- from my mother a second too late to save my New Year's Eve with Lily. She spoke not a word to me until the next morning.
But I bounced back. When Rosie asked me that same night how she looked in her pink peplum blouse and corduroy leggings, I smiled.
"Great."
And she did. And Lily did. I did when I was 17, too.
Thanks Mom. I love you. Happy birthday.