The new me

To be sure, I had been toying with the idea of letting my hair go silver for about a year.

My younger sister Cathy had let her hair go white. Much to my amazement Cathy, who is not known for her patience and far more diligent about about her beauty and hair regimen, endured months of the dark hair gradually fading to orange with the new hair growing in.

The white hair was pretty, we all knew from our stunning silver-haired goddess of a mom that the color was a shimmering, superhero silver that looked like the X-Men’s Storm. It was just that the transitional phase was brutal. One woman had called my sister brave to grow out her hair. “Clearly,” my sister noted wryly, “ the woman has no direct experience with actual heroism.”

Cathy had been determined to keep her hair long and so for her cutting it all off to start from scratch was too intense. She preferred to wait it out.

At one of my last hair appointments before the lockdown, my hair was disintegrating and thin and exhausted….just like me (well, except for the thin part). I brought up the idea of going to my natural color. My colorist Cindi agreed the hair was tired, but she said, “You are too young; Give it some more time.” I was already calculating all the money I would save if I stopped dying my hair. And that was definitely appealing.

At that point, I knew Pat was not doing well, but I had no idea his death was so imminent. We had just seen Pat’s oncologist, Dr. Hartner, and Lee did not say anything that would suggest Pat would be gone in the month.

Then the lockdown happened and Pat got really sick, so sick that for the first time since 2011 when he was first diagnosed, I got to take care of him. I bathed him and fed him and dressed him. He did not resist this new arrangement as I had feared he might. That’s how I realized he had surrendered to the inevitability of death. Pat was so grateful and loving and appreciative of my care. When I fed him in the morning, he would raise his hand and stop me from putting more food in his mouth and ask with this soft, hoarse voice: “Have you eaten anything? You need to take care of yourself.”

I laughed at this, “My darling, when have I ever forgotten to eat? “ And yet, the truth was I was not eating or sleeping much. My horror at losing Pat made me lose 10 pounds.

During that terrible time, the only time I laughed was when my sister Cathy, who had come to stay with the kids in me, told some outrageous joke, typically at the expense of one of our family members. Cathy noticed how grey I had become, and redoubled her efforts to lobby me to go natural with the color. “Who needs to spend the time and money at the salon? This is who we are are and the silver is pretty, just accept it.”

But, my dark hair had been my trademark, and Pat had loved it so; it was the part of me he noticed first and seemed to be the thing that sparked his falling-in-love with me. Irishman are suckers for dark hair and brown-eyed girls. The Van Morrison song- “Brown-eyed girl” was the one Pat had serenaded to me over the years, on our wedding day and then my 50th birthday. I had grown confident and self-assured by seeing myself through Pat’s eyes: Going silver would take that away, I thought.

After Pat died, and I went running and the silver hair grew more noticeable and dominant, it was like a hostile takeover. Covid had forced my hand: I had spent five months not coloring my hair, why would I resume it again. Pat was gone, so the main reason I kept coloring my hair was gone too.

Most of my friends had colored their own hair during the lockdown, but this terrified me, I knew whatever I did at home would make things worse. Grief makes you ugly and so the tangled Cruela DaVil look seemed right, at least my exterior reflected the interior.

But when the Governor announced that the hair stylists were permitted to reopen, I made a call the book my haircut. Michel, the co-owner, said “You want a color with Cindi? Right?“ And I heard myself answer, “No, I want Traviss, no color, I want Traviss to cut it all off and get down to the silver.” Michel paused for a moment: “Traviss is booked solid, but we will get you in as soon as we can.” This was like a hair emergency.

The original appointment in early July would be cancelled when the salon had a plumbing problem and the soonest they would get me in was July 28th. It seemed to me that the delay was a reprieve, a chance to talk myself out of it. Clearly, that did not happen. Obviously, my resolve endured.

I think there was a bit of disbelief about my decision to go white and cutting all my hair off. People did not know how to respond. I was still mourning Pat, “Was I sure?” more than a few worried friends and colleagues wondered. John, the farmer who helped Pat with his garden had shaved his own hair off with dog grooming shears, and he offered to do the same for me. I declined.

One day, I joked to my friend Lisa that I did not to wait any longer, “I could just do a Britney Spears to myself.” To be sure, I could understand why the singer, who was in the midst of some breakdown or crisis and was desperate to become unrecognizable, had just walked into a salon and shaved her head. But, again, my sister Cathy and Lisa talked me out of such a rash decision. “If you are going to do this, have a professional do it.”

How grateful I was to have waited for Traviss.

On the big day, I arrived 30 minutes early for my appointment, people who know me know I am perpetually late, and almost never early for anything. I had been awake all night, thinking about Pat and the decision to cut off all my hair.

I waited for some sign from Pat to stop me, but nothing came to me, no dream, no message from beyond. Camille was really excited for me and PJ hardly noticed that I was leaving the house on the big day.

When I arrived at the salon, Traviss, told me he had been up all night, worried and excited. He had not seen me in months and did not want to make me look broken or shattered. Cutting my hair would be symbolic and transformative but he did not want it to be ugly.

The whole process took an hour.
Traviss carefully removed every piece of long dark curly hair with a blade. The hair was so tired and worn, just like me, and he removed the hair lovingly and gently, like it was something sacred. Each time Traviss cut the hair, it floated to the floor like an autumn leaf. With each lock of hair, I could feel the heaviness of grief and the burden being carried away.

Traviss saw me crying and asked how I felt.

“It feels like swimming in the ocean. Please keep going.” I answered.

Just like it had been time to say goodbye to Pat, it had been time to say goodbye to the black hair. I could see that now, I could feel it. It was like my hair wanted to be set free.

It was shocking to see myself, shedding my old skin and the pain and my aching for my former life, and choosing something different for myself. I knew I did not want grief to trap me in the memories of when I was a wife and a younger woman that are now long gone. I could love and cherish Pat and not stand still. I did not want to die with Pat.

To survive it, I would need to go forward, and the long black curly hair was a treasure from my old life when I was 25 and first falling in love. I remember that girl, but she is someone else now, and the woman with fierce, short silver hair, the woman who is a professor and a single mother and had traveled the world and witnessed miracles and profound suffering and grief was the truest version of myself.

I wanted the outside to reflect the inside.

And well, it does now.