A Letter to Mother with the Long Hair by Jen Machajewski

It’s funny that I should remember it as long when you so rarely wore it down. But the photo of you and Dad in the gold velvet rocker in the new house shows shoulder-length, loose, black curls. And I know you always wore it down on Christmas morning.

I remember the bandanas and scarves that kept your hair tamed when there was a job to do. A blue handkerchief for painting a room or camping along the river. A scarf of brown and green paisleys wrapped as a headband and tied at the nape of the neck when running errands. On days I went to ballet class, you wore it in a tight bun, to match mine. Within minutes, my hair would escape, frizzy and wild, but yours always stayed smooth and controlled.

I was always sick—a childhood filled with ear infections, bronchitis, pneumonia, high fevers, fitful sleepless nights, pills in pudding, and droppers of sweet, pink antibiotics. You would set me up in the den on the couch near the sliding glass doors so I could watch my older siblings play in the snow.

You gave me a bell to ring whenever I needed you.

Did your hair fall in my face when you checked my temperature? Sitting on the edge of the couch, hip pressed against mine, you shook the silver ball of mercury down to the bottom of the glass tube. I cannot remember if you pressed the back of your hand to my forehead or leaned in to kiss it. It doesn’t matter. It was you, mother with the long hair, taking care of me, nursing me back to health—again.

When did it happen?

Was I six-and-a-half or seven-going-on-eight?

I ran in from the backyard, wiping sticky sweat and strands of hair off my face, to greet you as you came through the front door.

She walked in instead.

Her hair did not move when she walked; her tight curls barely touched her ears. I saw your face attached to this stranger who was not my mother, and I cried.

When she saw my tears, she put one arm around my shoulder and squeezed. Her laughter fell over me like flour from a sifter.

Even now, I cannot brush it off.

I have passed through the age she was then, and I can recognize the pivot, the seizing of opportunity for transition. Our family had moved, again, but this would be the last time. The two oldest were now adults; the two youngest in full-time school. She had set aside every personal goal for the last twenty-one years. It was time. Time for a career other than motherhood, a goal other than survival.

She got her degree and a real estate license. She wore shoulder-padded blazers with a gold nametag and taught me to use the answering machine. She gave me my very own key to the house.

And she cut your hair.

I never got to say goodbye. You vanished while I was practicing cartwheels in the backyard.

She would say this is all a fiction. And she can prove it.

A photo of her holding me on her hip. See, my hair is short. A family photo when I was thirteen years old. Look, my hair is long. She would say that she was there for everything: doctors and dentists, vaccinations and braces, Girl Scouts and gymnastics, basketball games and bruised knees. All this, even after I started working.

She would insist that she does not recall me crying. Then again, she would say, you cried so often.

She is probably right.

But I cannot brush off this memory — a fiction I cannot edit.

A month ago her thin, gray hair that never lost its curl was shaved off after chemotherapy took it in clumps. Today, she lies in bed with nurses at her side.

Family is gathering.

Everyone is saying goodbye.

But not me — not yet.

I am still waiting for you—mother with the long hair—to come through the front door, hold me with both arms, and make everything stop hurting.

Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Basheer Tome