I love it on a Sunday morning as I cut my husband’s hair and think of ages past and scissors held by the different hands through time. Mother as a barber and a stylist both; up to date on Sassoons and Wedge; thick and thin hair, coarse and baby fine, adding sons-in-law and sisters to the clientele. Eventually the need to take over just as Alzheimers had taken over all the rest of her. She taught me well, and father, mother, husband, sisters, in-laws, friends, and neighbors, sat beneath my flashing blades. So important that the finest German pair of scissors costing hundreds was an acceptable gift beneath a Christmas tree. And my own hair I can cut.
I remember the first time that I cut my own, after practicing on all my dolls. Mother so angry with the inch-long bangs I thought were great she woke my father from his morning sleep after a hard night’s shift as factory foreman. Towards the end she let me cut her hair but never did I get it shaped as well as she used to do herself. And sometimes I still let her cut mine, thinking maybe it was something that would jog a memory. Or maybe I just needed to hold on too.
So today I cut my husband’s hair, and as I shook the cover out into the wind and watched the hair catch in the shrubs, I thought of nests it would line to softly warm another family growing strong to fly away.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology