My grandma had a beauty shop in her house when I was growing up. Older ladies from all over town would come and get their hair done while us grandkids ran all over the place. The house was big enough you could always find new places to hide. The beauty shop was the only place in the house you could wash your hair because there were no showers – just bathtubs, which seemed to be ancient in my little mind. They did the trick, though.
There’s something you should know about my grandma’s hair. It’s not average. It’s big. Really big. If we ever got separated from her in Walmart the first response was to search for her hair. It was uniquely hers, never gray, always black. I loved it. Still do. I used to stand in the beauty shop and watch her fix it. Perhaps what amazed me most is that it looked the same every day. She would go to bed and the next morning wake up the same. My hair didn’t do that. I’d wake up with tangles and knots like I’d wrestled a crocodile in my sleep. Not my grandma. Always the same.
Ahh.. I finally figured out her secret: hairspray. Not just any hairspray, though. Vita E. That was the magic potion behind her concrete hair. I swear she used a can of that stuff a day. A hurricane could blow through town but Grandma’s hair would still be standing.
Grandma was a lot like that can of hairspray. Ultra Hold.
She held up through the sun, rain, wind, and humidity, just like the description on the can promised. She was tough – wading through storms and coming out on the other side, but sometimes harder than she went in. I thought she was invincible. Sometimes her heart was wrapped in the ultra hold and you couldn’t get to it. She loved you but didn’t always know how to show it. Maybe somewhere along the lines of life she forgot how to both love and be loved.
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