Keeping greys

My mother told me she shuddered when she saw grey hair for the first time on my brother’s head. He was a teenager then, pimple faced, round rimmed glasses, and still her baby - she hoped. But there he was, rebellious, immature, and nonetheless - strands of grey hair stood up in defiance, shimmering in the light. As she was telling me this story, she closed her eyes and looked overwhelmed, like it was all too raw for her to discuss.

That shard of memory and my mother’s murky disgust resurfaced when she pointed out in shock and horror, “You have grey hair!” But this time, the grey hair was mine. And I was in my thirties. I recoiled at her words like a frightened critter. I regretted sitting down next to her while she was standing and rambling on about something, giving her the chance to spot the creeping grey hair on the top of my head. Feeling hurt and exposed, I decided that I would at least hide how I felt about it.

“It’s fine, mom, it’s just grey hair.”

My mom’s used enough hair dye during her life to tint Lake Simcoe a murky shade of brown and purple. At first, she justified, she was in her thirties and it was unusual for someone her age to have so much grey hair. It scared her. After the first dye though, that divide between dark and white never went away. A strand that turned white was surely, abruptly met with an artificial darkening of it. And it was the abruptness perhaps, that my mother found disgusting.

Gradually, her hair became eerily dark. She said she’s accepted her grey hair, but instead of waiting for months to grow out the dyed hair, it was just easier to convert the white hair instead. As her natural hair turned whiter, the dye turned stronger. So as she grew older, her hair grew darker. Like in her thirties when she complained that the colour of her hair didn’t match her age, it happened again in her seventies, although this time it was the other way around.

My mother says when her hair is purely white like a silver fox, she’ll grow it out. Maybe there’s truth there. Maybe we can all accept being old, but it’s turning old that we can’t. And it’s this in between that we spend a lifetime wrestling with.