Not Just Gray

The morning donned overcast and a heavy mist blanketed the horizon. I climbed the stairs from our bedroom, flipping light switches on as I went and noticed how little they did to break up the grayness of the day.

I ran the shower, steam permeating the stale bathroom air and settling on the tile floor, making it slick. If I didn't watch my step getting out of the shower, I would find myself looking up at the underside of the toilet seat. A grotesque thought, when one has a nearly-eight-year-old boy who frequently aims just left of the toilet bowl.

The shower curtain dashes across it's rod and my daughter's voice repeatedly announces, "I'm FIVE! I'm FIVE!". "I know", I comment as I replace the shower curtain and toss my dry, fluffy towel into the pool of water that has now accumulated on the floor. "Isn't it exciting?" I ask. I rinse and step from the shower, contributing to the puddle that my once fluffy towel is now absorbing.

My son, who isn't feeling well this morning, isn't entertained by her chorus of "I'm FIVE!", as he stumbles into the bathroom and slips on the condensation drenched tile. I think to myself, "She will soon listen to you gloat about being eight, so tolerate it."

I pour each child a bowl of cereal with milk and return to the bathroom where I begin blow drying my hair. I'm thinking of the day my daughter was born and that with each passing year, my twenties fade further and further away. Stray hairs run this way and that across my part and as I pull them into place, the light glints off one particularly blond piece of hair. Being that I am a brunette, a blond hair tends to catch my eye.

"Oh NO!", I cry from the bathroom. My husband, always ready with a wise crack, springs from the bed, certain that I have dropped a contact down the drain. I separate this particularly blond hair from the brunette ones. "Well, now I'm not the only one", he remarks. He too has gray hair, though his don't hang past his shoulders. My twenties fade further with each passing moment. I examine this hair closely in the mirror, mortified.

I lean into the mirror, noting that this seems to be the only traitor and take my revenge on the hair. As I pluck it swiftly from my scalp, my husband calls from the bedroom, "Don't pull it". I emerge from the bathroom, commenting that I already had, for him to remark that two traitorous hairs will replace the one that I had pulled.

I grasp this hair between my thumb and forefinger and hold it up in the light. This hair, with it's elderly texture, had suddenly become the bane of my existence.

Forever will my daughter remember her fifth birthday; for her parties, purple princess cake and new piano. Forever will I remember my daughter's fifth birthday; for the hair that was not just gray, but white.