The Thing I Remember About Her - Chris Callaghan

The thing I remember about her is her “boing” hair. Carrie was only three then and her hair would have reached past her shoulders if it hadn’t been so curly. When I could get her to stand still long enough for me to tug on one of those golden sausages, it brushed the third or fourth vertebrae of her spine. But when she raced away from me in the pursuit of her busy morning schedule, it would pull out of my fingers and contract with an audible “boing” into a tight curl.

It was the color of Rapunzel’s dwarf’s gold, shining in the torchlight of the fairy tale castle. Blonde was too dull a word for it. Of course to a three year old the color of her hair was irrelevant. The fact that it interfered with her daily agenda was paramount. It fell in her eyes; the finger paints, and attracted every seedpod and leaf within a square block radius.

Since I could not bring myself to cut even one strand, I gathered it up onto the top of her head in a topknot. And there it stayed; corralled by the elastic band she brought me to contain it.

By mid-afternoon the coiled energy of that topknot demanded release and my daughter would come to me, begging me to take out the elastic, “It hurts mom!” I’d hold her squirming body between my knees while I gently tugged it off.

But the curls, having been commanded to stay put for so long, kept on doing so, and the blossom of hair held its shape for another hour, or until I brushed it out. Pulling didn’t do the trick, because each curl would “boing” right back into place like errant springs.

I loved her hair, but she didn’t. As she grew up, she ironed it, straightened it, and dyed it every other color that Clairol sold. I flinched at the browns and reds and blacks, but missed the “boing” aspect the most.

Luckily, I had enough foresight to take a bunch of pictures and the wisdom to save a few long strands in an envelope when she demanded it be cut. The color is still true, and the “boing” survived. See?