My next earliest memory involved my hair.
I was four and a half, almost five years old, maybe even five.
Back then, my hair was extraordinary. Dark, thick, curly, shiny, and all the way down to my waist. The kind of hair strangers stopped to admire. The kind of hair little girls in fairy tales are supposed to have.
My mother loved it.
I loved it.
People at the beauty parlor loved it.
One day, my mother and I were getting ready to go somewhere, and she asked my father if he would help by combing my hair.
Anyone with curly hair understands there is a method to survival.
You start at the ends.
You gently work upward.
You negotiate with the knots like a hostage mediator.
My father either did not know this or did not care to know it.
Instead, he attacked my hair from the roots downward like he was clearing jungle brush with military force.
The comb got tangled almost immediately.
And it hurt.
I screamed.
“You’re hurting me! Stop!”
But instead of stopping, he yanked harder, tried again, got stuck again, and I screamed louder.
Finally, frustrated, he pushed me off his lap. When my father pushed me off his lap, I never sat on it again. Not because I didn’t want to, but because he would not allow me to.
“I’m not combing her hair,” he announced to my mother. “Take her to the beauty parlor and get it cut off.”
End of discussion.
When my father snapped, my mother listened.
So my mother and I walked down the street to the beauty shop.
When we arrived, I climbed into the big beauty chair. A towel was wrapped around my shoulders, and a cape was fastened snugly around my neck.
The hairstylist turned the chair away from the mirror.
I remember watching the first long locks of curl fall.
Then another.
And another.
Soon the floor around me was covered with what looked like a small area rug made entirely of my long dark curls.
Each one seemed to take a little piece of me with it.
When the hairdresser finally turned the chair around so I could see myself in the mirror, I didn't recognize the little girl staring back at me.
My waist-length curls were gone.
In their place was a very short pixie haircut.
I burst into tears.
My mother tried to comfort me with a lollipop.
It didn't help. There was no way my hair was going to grow back so quickly.
Nothing was going to make this better.
Now we had to walk back home, and my little legs struggled to keep up with my mother's.
It felt like it was the walk of shame.
For me, it was.
We got home, my father looked at me, shrugged, and said,
“Well... she's ugly.”
Children believe their parents.
If the people who are supposed to love you tell you you're ugly, you don't argue.
You simply begin looking in the mirror for proof.
From that day forward, my hair became much more than hair.
It became something I guarded.
Something I took pride in.
Something that reminded me that beauty could be taken away without my permission.
Do you have any idea how slowly hair grows when you're waiting for it?
Every morning I looked in the mirror hoping it had magically grown overnight.
Every morning I was disappointed.
It took years before it was long again.
Years before strangers admired it once more.
Years before I could look in the mirror without hearing my father's voice.
To the little girl I was, it felt like losing a part of myself.
As an adult, I would later think of that day as leading the lamb to slaughter.
Looking back, I understand it was a haircut for my father’s convenience and indirectly for my mother’s peace.
Some memories fade with time.
That one never did.