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When I look into the mirror I see a 40 year old woman. She is short at 5 feet, 40 pounds overweight, long thin brown hair with the gray definitely coming in, basically someone tired and old. My life, which I am happy with and very lucky to have, consists of taking care of others with my five children, husband, both parents being disabled and living with me. There is no time for myself and usually it really does not bother me. I am happy with getting up at 4:30 a.m, throwing on my sweat pants, putting my hair up in a ponytail, washing my face and brushing my teeth. Then I am off with my tasks for the day.

Unfortunately, for me that is, there are the special occasions when I actually have to look in the mirror and worry about my hair, makeup and wearing that gorgeous outfit that I just bought at the store which looked so much better on the display model.

In a couple of days, my little brother is getting married. It is going to be a large formal wedding and I have been working for months to get everyone ready. My oldest son and my two youngest sons are going to be in the wedding. They look so dashing in their black tuxedos. I realized yesterday that I don't have anything to wear so even though it was the day after Christmas, we were off to the store. I had to take my five year old son with me because everyone was busy. He was not too excited about going but he packed up his Nintendo ds and we were off.

It did not take me long to find some beautiful dresses. I really do loves clothes just not the way they look on me. We were then off to the dreaded dressing room. As I tried on each outfit I got more and more depressed. I have never been very happy with the way that I look but looking into that full length mirror trying on the outfits and realizing how ridiculous and ugly I looked I just sat down on the changing bench and started crying. I did not want to go to the wedding and embarrass my family by the way that I looked.

All of a sudden my son's head popped in under the door. He was getting bored and was ready to go. When he saw that I was crying, he crawled under the door and hugged me. He put a hand on each side of face and made me look at him. After a little kiss on my forehead he asked me what was wrong. I looked him in the eyes and apologized for letting myself get so worn down and looking so bad. I know that I must embarrass him and I was truly sorry.

He looked confused for a minute and then he started laughing. He said,"You are silly. You are the most beautiful mom I have ever had." He then offered to help me. So I stood up and faced the mirror again. We both just stood there looking into the mirror for a minute. My son then said, "I know. Smile!" Which, ofcourse, I had to do just for him. "See! You are the most beautiful mom every!" At that moment, I felt like it!

Needless to say, I bought the dress and plan to wear it with pride to the wedding.

Learn more about this author, Amy Denney.
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