The Ringlet

I only fine this story fitting for today as it was about my mother. She has been on my mind lately, so I thought I would share it.

When I was younger, three years old to be exact, I had Shirley Temple curls. These were long, black curls that when stretched made it all the way down my back. But when you let it go, boing, up they sprang where they settled on my shoulders. They are named after a young actress from the 1950’s named Shirley Temple. I remember loving those natural curls but my mother, not so much.

I was probably three and a half when she took the scissors to them because she could no longer get a hairbrush through my hair without an all out crying battle with me. At the time, I didn’t understand why she was doing this, but now that I have kids of my own, I totally get it.

My mother cut those curls off herself using the scissors from our medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I sat in a wood chair staring at the 1970’s black and white tile floor as tears flowed from my eyes like a river from too many days of rain. One after another. The huge ringlets fell to the ground with each snip, snip, snip. More ringlets.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Until. The. Very. Last. One.

As the tears rolled down my face, I remember wondering am I bald? I was devastated. I was a puddle that no kid likes to jump in. I refused to look in the small, handheld mirror when my mother handed it to me. I sat there with my lip perfectly pouting that someone might have tripped over it.

“Now Elana,” my mother said. “This is no way to act.”

“I WANT MY HAIR BACK!” I screamed.

She new better than to argue with a three year old spit fire. I ran out of the bathroom and down the stairs to the comfort of my white blankie that was thrown on the black couch.

I moped around for a little bit until my little sister, Heather, teetered and tottered in the room saying, “Lana. Play dolls.” After that, I forgot all about my haircut and went back to being my three year old self.

The funny thing is though, my mother must have been upset about giving me that haircut as much as I was to receive it because in my memory box I have a blue hard plastic container. And in that container, is the first ringlet that she had ever cut off.