Wandering Through The Land Of Nod.

Gratitude for a hairdresser and grief remembered at a thin time of year.

The sharp March wind sent clouds racing across the bright blue sky and picked up litter and old autumn leaves, sending them flurrying into spirals around my head as I walked down the hill to the hairdresser’s.

The heat hit me when I pushed open the door to Streaks a Head, but the warmth didn’t reach my heart. Tears were never far away and I dreaded having to speak, but there was no need. My hairdresser knew what had happened. She dismissed the young assistant, helped me off with my coat and showed me straight to a chair where I could lay my head back while she washed my hair.

May I be forgiven for ever thinking that hairdressing skill is limited to snipping, shaping, colouring and drying along with chatter about holidays, nights out and household hints. All of that is important, but hairdressers do so much more.

It was a few days after my dad died that I had my hair done. I’m talking last century, in 1990. I was bereft over his death. I was sad, lost and angry. I felt the loss for my children, my mam, my brothers and sisters, his friends and for the world, but most of all I felt it for myself. That death propelled me into a lonely exile.

All at the same time, I felt a huge responsibility to look after everyone else, but not that afternoon.

For that hour at the hairdresser’s, I had no responsibility. I didn’t have to do anything but be cared for and she really cosseted me while she took her time washing, drying, cutting and blow drying. Lying back, with warm water rinsing my hair time after time and gentle hands massaging my scalp, I felt tension and grief being washed and soothed away. She did it all without words and there were no questions.

I’m so grateful to her and while my memory lasts, I will not forget her or what she did that day.

Why am I thinking about this now? after all, I’m writing in October, not February, which is when dad died.

Well, with Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day approaching, this is a thin time of year. It feels as if whatever separates heaven and earth, things seen and unseen, the living and the dead is a bit thinner than normal. When the days get darker and the nights longer, I can’t help but think about all the people I love but can’t see. I guess that’s part of loving.

Years after that visit to Streaks a Head, I began to encounter other people’s grief through taking funerals, and at this time of year I would take a bereavement service in church. Churches were always full for those occasions when families and friends gathered to remember precious loved ones by name and light candles for them.

We can’t trick or treat our way out of grief, though that might brighten a dark night, but we can find ways to help each other through and hopefully learn to live with love and gratitude.

I thank everyone who’s helped me find my way through the wilderness of grief.

Especially today, I thank my hairdresser.

Who do you want to thank?

Wander well,

Mandy.

Things I love:

• Having my hair done.
• Chatting about holidays, nights out and household hints.
• Turning the clocks back in October.

Kindness, Hairdressers, grief, gratitude, bereavement, All Souls Tide.