The Age of Beauty

Your Beauty Standards Matter

Black is forever beautiful — regardless of age. Black doesn’t crack which I believe is true. My mother, resting in eternal peace, didn’t have any wrinkles in her 70s until she was stricken by cancer. The dreaded disease aged my mother by twenty years and that was the only way her Black cracked. But if a major illness doesn’t strike us, Black women always look gorgeous in their skin, Whether you’re 18 or 80, the melanin in Black women always stays popping. It is the gift handed down to us by our ancestors from Africa as a way to look good even when we’re going through Hell.

Like my mother, I was also stricken by cancer. During a self-breast exam, I discovered a hard lump in my right breast. I’ve had that type of lump before usually when I was coming off my period. But this time, the lump felt different. And when my period had long since left, the hard lump remained. A visit to my doctor and a biopsy later revealed the worst — breast cancer.

I’ve been in remission for nearly nine years. Nearly seven of those years I’ve been without my mother. She had ovarian cancer which had metastasized. Despite medical intervention (or lack thereof), my mother passed away in her sleep, devastating all of us. I am still in a constant state of grief, shifting like the clouds, depending on the day.