The Grey Hair Pin

Posted by Linda Albert in HandPrints Stories & Videos | 0 comments

© Linda Albert

Whenever my grandmother came to visit, I was obligated to share my bedroom with her. I can still picture her relieving her pendulous breasts from the confines of her corset, then removing the pins from the bun in her snow-white hair. But though peeking at granny while pretending to be asleep provided some satisfaction for my youthful curiosity, it did not compensate for what to me was a painful loss of privacy. There were always a few of Granny’s gray hairpins left scattered on my dresser after she left, reminders of the sacrifice I was forced to endure.

The beloved centerpiece of my mother’s very large family, Granny stayed with us each year for the High Holidays. A traditional Jew, she wouldn’t drive on the holiest days of the year, and since we lived within walking distance of a synagogue, it became my brother’s role to proudly escort her. My mother often said that while Granny kept kosher, at least she wasn’t “crazy kosher,” and didn’t impose her ways on her children; all of whom became Reformed or liberal in their practice of religion. Granny performed her rituals in quiet corners, lighting Sabbath and holiday candles, barely observed. We went about our worldly ways, oblivious to the rich tradition we might be missing. I simply shared my room with Granny, her forgotten gray hairpins annoying but reassuring souvenirs of her visits.

I was unappreciative in other ways as well. I was not permitted a haircut from the ages of three to twelve, and instead wore my waist-length hair blond hair – a feature my mother called my “crowning glory” – in long, fat braids which I hated. Endless pinches on the cheek and comparisons to “pretty little Dutch girls,” did not feel like a compliments to me in my early years. Whenever she was with us, Granny bravely took it upon herself to try to get the ever present snarls out of my hair. Attempting to distract me, Granny told stories about the Old Country. But as the hairbrush worked its way through those awful snarls, I whined and carried on so outrageously she was never able to get to an ending.

By the time I was twelve, my oldest cousin Ginny convinced my mother to allow me to cut my hair, and Granny’s aborted stories stopped. It never occurred to me then to ask her to finish them. I simply assumed she would be around forever and could hear them later. How far did Uncle Max, the only boy in a fatherless household, actually get when he ran away from home in Detroit, trying to find his grandfather in Russia? Was he punished, or hugged when he was finally found? What was it like for Granny to come to America at eighteen, to be married off to a stranger? How did she did she manage being left a widow when my mother, the youngest of six, was only eight months old? Why was Grandpa Louis, the handsome man in the picture, referred to as the “brains of the family,” but otherwise never talked about?

This came to a jolting halt when I was sixteen. Though Granny had looked like a white-haired old lady since the age of 35, with her floral dresses, corsets and thick black heeled old-lady tie shoes, she had the energy of a girl. Yet one night, at the age of seventy-two, suffering from little more than hypertension and arthritis, she announced she didn’t feel well, lay down in bed, closed her eyes, and quietly died.

For weeks, my mother told us over and over how grateful she was that when Granny called, in the mood for a nice piece of whitefish, Mother went to the market to get it, even though she herself was tired, and both Granny and the fish market were miles away. But for me, the sudden loss was devastating.

With Granny gone, I knew with painful clarity what I had forfeited by refusing to hear the ends of her stories. I recognized the unmerited love and patience she had bestowed upon me, and how much I loved her. I began to see, what I’d known all along, why she was revered by so many others. She had faced her life challenges with grace, and her passing proved to be one of my greatest life lessons. I had learned the inevitability of life’s endings; never again would I take anyone, or any situation, for granted.

For years I regretted my failings with regard to Granny. My heart warmed if someone pronounced my name with a foreign lilt; I gravitated to other people’s stories. Many years later, I described Granny in a character sketch for a writing class. Beginning and ending with the imagery of gray hairpins, my story thanked my special grandmother for her profound lessons.

At another time and place, in preparation for a program of readings, I presented my piece to a group of other writers. Just as I reached the last line the woman sitting next to me leaned down to pick up something she’d noticed lying on the floor. Incredibly, it turned out to be a gray hairpin!

Even though I hadn’t seen a gray hair pin on my dresser in more than twenty years, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that somehow Granny was listening; and I had found redemption.