Tangled Hair – and a Sister’s Gift
The tangles
The worst tangled hair of my life happened one summer. I came in from playing on that hot day to get a drink and decided to re-comb my hair, which was a mess. When I removed the hairpins from my bun, my long hair fell to my hips in a knotted tangle.
My sister Barbara was home for the summer. She taught school and lived in Delaware during the school year. During holidays and in the summer, she spent her days back home in western Maryland. She liked the non- humid and cool days of summer, and we enjoyed her extended stays. Barb took one look and exclaimed at my tangled hair.
“It’s too hard to comb it all out, so I just do the front,” I told her. I’m sure she’d already figured that out by the looks of the rat nest in the back of my head.
“Oh for goodness sake, Gertrude,” she said. “Let me comb that out for you.”
I was busy playing with my sisters and really wanted to head outside, but her school-teacher-big-sister-tone let me know I might as well sit down. So I did. Truth be told, I was old enough (maybe ten or twelve) to know better, but young enough not to care. Now here I was, accepting help from my sister who was in teacher-student mode.
The comb
Barb put water into a basin in the dining room sink, dipped the comb in water [that was before the days of squirt-bottles!] and got to work. She fussed and fumed at me. I tried to explain how hard it is when I’m in a hurry to comb out the tangles. After all, I had more important things to do – like play.
“That’s why you do it every day,” she said exasperated. “If you do it every day, you don’t have this mess.”
Even in her frustration, she was gentle. Instead of dragging the comb through my hair from top to bottom, she parted it into sections. She proceeded to untangle each section, a few strands at a time. It took a long time, and I sat still, knowing each wiggle would compound the jerking of my head. I think I probably spent an hour in that chair; it was that tangled.
The lesson
I never, ever, allowed my hair to become that tangled again. Sometimes when I’m combing it out (especially after I’ve washed it) I think of Barb.
She could have – in her frustration – made the process more painful than it was. Barb could have yanked my hair and jerked the comb through it to validate her frustration or make me pay for my negligence. She could have refused to use water to drive home her point.
Instead, she took time to separate the strands into sections and worked through my hair, one section at a time. As I recall, we talked about other things besides my hair and its tangles. She took the focus off my negligence and took an interest in my world. Barb made an insurmountable (to me) task doable. She divided and conquered. Barb made what was difficult, easier because she could.
It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.
Photo credit: pixabay.com
