Mother's Day Braids

Half a dozen dangling braids
all hanging in a row,
then
each one tied
up tightly
with a brightly
colored bow.
      Nobody
                  combs my hair
                                          just like
                                                      Mama.
                                                        from: Just Like Mama
                                    by: Leslea Newman (illus. by Julia Gorton)

       Every evening a beautiful, silver braid hung all the way down my great-grandma’s back. At the end of each day, she swung her hair over her left shoulder and brushed and brushed. Then while looking in a mirror, braided and braided, all the way to the very skinny tip. No tie at the top and no tie at the bottom. I felt lucky. Not everyone got to see her braid. It was part of her nighttime look.
        My grandmother usually wore a wig. It changed over the years from brown to “salt and pepper” and finally silver. She had diphtheria when she was small, leaving her hair so very thin. Not many people saw her without her wig. But I was lucky. It was part of her real look.
        My mother had long hair when I was growing up. Beautiful waves frame her youthful face in the wedding picture I have on my wall. I suspect she never wore a braid.
        When I was growing up, my mom braided my hair. First the ponytail, smoothed down with a damp comb, then the rubberband. She did not use the coated ouchless ones. I sat on the closed toilet seat while Mom sat on the thin edge of the tub and braided down to the skinny tip at the middle of my back, securing it with another non-ouchless rubberband. In the evening the whole process went in reverse. Sometimes I had two braids, and they were always secured at the top. I didn’t like the part when the top rubberbands came out. Ouch. I wondered if my hair would ever be as thin as Grandma's. But I was lucky. I had braid-created waves all evening.          
        Both of my daughters had long hair when they were young. Ouchless rubberbands had been invented by then, so their braids came out easily.
        My granddaughters both had long hair and braids, too. Recently, my older granddaughter broke with a tradition she didn’t even know our family had. My younger granddaughter still loves to wear an Elsa braid.
       Tradition lives.
       It lives in the braided history we share, tying us together with stories we tell each other and new stories we are writing now.
       I’m still feeling the silvery afterglow of Mother’s Day. Even though both of my girls spent their days with their own families, I know we’re woven together--tight, and mostly ouchless.                                                                                                                                                                                  --stay curious!