**EDITOR’S NOTE: Yesterday my mom’s side of the family got together to celebrate my Grandma’s 87th birthday. Each grandchild wrote about a special memory or time to put in a special book for her. I ended up writing about hair – not at all what I originally had in mind! Cheers to an amazing woman!**
Your parents named you Olive, but that didn’t seem to fit right and Margaret seemed much better. Over the years you’ve worn many different hats and carried many different names: Maggie, Mrs. Lowman, Auntie, Mom, God Damn it Margaret, Grandma, Midge, and pretty soon you’ll be adding Great Grandma to the list. To me you’ve been Grandma Lowman and in the last few years Midge, a nickname adopted on our second trip to Scotland and Ireland.
I’ve got a heap of memories and special moments with you – all sticking out and wanting to be documented, but the ones that I carry with me closest to my heart are the ones that remind me that you and I are very similar and this puts a gigantic smile on my face. My childhood memories are sprinkled with fun events and special times visiting you and Grandpa and in my adulthood I have found the conversations you and I have, about anything and everything, always fulfilling.
One such conversation that has stuck with me happened when I was probably 11 or 12 years old, not quite an adult, feeling conscious and aware of how I looked, but not at all confident. I had come to visit you and Grandpa for a few days and you and I were planning on going to downtown Seattle to ride the public buses, the ones with the accordion sides, and visit your friend that owned a grocery store. Perhaps we were going to see a play as well. From what I can remember it was to be a special day shared between grandmother and granddaughter, and it was. The moment from that day, however, that still sits in the center of my heart revolves around our hair.
The hair that sits atop my head is a genetic copy of your younger hair. I, just like you, had heard over and over again how beautiful my hair was. On our trip to Seattle you had noticed that many people stopped to compliment the color, curl, length and total beauty of the auburn mess I carried. You recognized that it appeared that I was nearly bored with these compliments and they rolled off my back without acknowledgment, mostly because I didn’t know to accept them for what they were.
By the time we got back home to your house you had decided to sit me down in the kitchen and explain to me that receiving these compliments was not going to go away in my lifetime and I needed to learn to accept them with straight shoulders, eye contact and a confident voice. So, we practiced. I remember you physically grabbing my chin, unslouching my shoulders and demanding that I speak louder. You shared that you once had the same hair, curl, color, length and all. You had also heard the same questions and comments over and over, but what I really remember was you saying people giving the compliment to me had maybe never seen my hair or really did think it was beautiful. These people were going out of their way to say something kind about me and I needed to recognize that and thank them for their effort.
After our training session, I’d like to think that I became much more confident and understood the art of receiving, and possibly giving, a compliment. Ironically, as you have grown older your hair has changed. It no longer looks or even feels like it once did, but it still moves, has style and frames your adorable face. When I compliment you on it, when it isn’t covered by one of your many hats, you tend to start to explain to me how frustrating and ugly you think it is. I interrupt you and remind you that I didn’t compliment you to hear about what you think about your hair, I just wanted to share what I thought about it and you should accept it. This is an ongoing banter we have and you laugh and square your shoulders, look me in the eye and loudly accept the compliment, wearing the hat of Grandma – the one that I think fits you best.