Browjan's Blog: The Long Good-Bye

Grandma Jan

Grandma Jan never took off her wig…and then we learned the reason why.  Dealing with cover ups a new edition of The Long Good Bye.

I don’t think my mother-in-law would mind if you know that she used to wear a wig. Not all the time, but when she was in a hurry and didn’t have time to fix her hair just the way she liked it, she’d put on her wig. It was nice one and she looked very attractive in it. The year before Grandma Jan came to live with us, she started to wear her wig a lot. Since we were used to her wearing it, we didn’t think anything of it. We figured Grandma just felt nicer or more dressed up when she was wearing her wig.

It wasn’t until she moved in with us that we realized that Grandma never took off her wig. She wore it to bed and wore it into the bathroom when she took a shower. Within the first week of living with us, we learned (dry towels and not changing her clothes were subtle hints) that even though we heard the water running, Grandma wasn’t really taking a shower. We realized then that being a caretaker means taking on the battle of baths and hair washing–neither of which was Grandma willing to participate in by any means. Having raised three boys, I was used to some bath time battles. But, there is a great difference between getting your four year old to take a bath and getting your seventy year old aqua-phobic mother-in-law into the shower.  But anyway, I digress. This blog entry is not about the battle for baths or shower time skirmishes, its about covering things up.

The first thing I decided to do after Grandma Jan moved in was to make a hair appointment for her. I figured, she’d have to take the wig off to get her hair done. It was a brilliant plan. We’d get her a nice cut and then she wouldn’t want to put on the wig. As we were driving to the hair dresser, I thought maybe just maybe I ought to take a peak under the wig and see how her hair looked.

So once we pulled into the parking lot of the hair salon, I said, “Let’s go ahead and take off your wig before we go in to the hair dresser. That way she won’t have to do it.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” answered my mother in law. “I’m not sure I want to take it off at all.”

“Well, I think she will have to take it off to wash your hair,” I replied quite proud of my ability to remain calm.

“I don’t know…” she answered. “I’m not sure it will come off.”

“Well, let’s try.” I said carefully reaching up to touch her head.

“Don’t do that,” she slapped my hand away.

“Look Grandma,” I was no longer calm, “We’re going to take your wig off. We can do it nicely or we can get into it here in the car, but no matter what that wig is coming off.”

She glared at me as if I was the devil, but allowed me to begin to remove the wig. It was attached with a gazillion bobby pins. I removed them one by one.  She sat serenely like a queen awaiting the removal of her crown. Carefully, I lifted the wig from her head.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw, and I will spare you all the grim details. But sometime in the past, long long ago in another time and place, Grandma had carefully put her hair up in what I think you call pin curls. Each curl was in place with a criss-cross of bobby pins. Now imagine that you put Crisco food shortening all over those pin curls. That will give you a small idea of what I saw. And now that I had the wig off, it was five minutes to the hair appointment and I was horrified. How could we have allowed this to happen? How could we have not known? I blamed myself.

I took her hand, and with tears welling up I said over and over, “I’m so sorry, Mom. I had no idea.”

“Oh, it’s ok!” she replied cheerfully. She had no idea. She did not understand that her hair involved all your senses. The sight, the smell, the touch…

After my initial grief and horror over what I saw, I quickly became worried. What would the hair dresser think? Would she consider us abusive children who did not care for their mother? or worse that we were into some sort of kinky Crisco torture?

I decided to cancel the appointment.

I  asked Grandma to stay in the car and I got out and went into the hair salon. Our appointment was with LuLa a wonderful gracious Southern woman whose mother would never have worn a wig. I told her that I didn’t think we could keep the appointment. I meant to keep it brief and apologetic, but instead I started to cry. She put her arm around me and before I knew it I was telling her all about the wig and pin curls and the Crisco oil.

“Now never you mind about that,” Lula said warmly. “You just bring her in here and we’ll take care of that oily hair.”

Oh, how I love Lula. God definitely gave me the hairdresser from heaven. Grandma ended up getting the works. Her hair was washed, cut and highlighted. She came out of the salon with tresses that looked like a movie star and smelled like rose petals without the hint of lard.

Yesterday, I was reminded of how Grandma Jan kept things hidden and under wraps, when I went to try a new pair of shoes on my mother.

Although they were actually too big, she insisted they were too small and hurt her toes.

“Well, let me have a look at your toes, Mom.”

“No, no…I get too cold when I take off my socks.” answered Mom.

Her reluctance to remove her socks reminded me of Grandma Jan’s great cover up. The socks had to come off. I needed to see my mother’s toes.

But Mama wasn’t haven’t any of it. Her socks were staying on.

Finally, Dad looked up from his Solitaire game on the computer long enough to say, “She won’t let you take her socks off because her toenails are way too long, and she won’t let me cut them.”

“Oh, well, then I’ll have to cut them, or we could have the doctor do it, or I could even take you for a pedicure! How about that Mom, do you want to go for a pedicure?” I was once again quite proud of my ability to remain calm under pressure and use creative suggestions.

“Nope. George can cut my nails, I’m not taking off my socks,” replied Mom.

“Well, MOTHER,” I felt my teeth clench and my blood pressure rise, “I have to see your toes!” And I grabbed her foot and began to wrestle her for the sock.

Dad stood up, and said, “Hold on girls. We can’t do this anyway because I don’t have the blue pan. We must have left it when we moved, and I can’t cut her toenails unless she soaks her feet in the blue pan.”

“I HAVE THE PAN!” I said. (Well, actually I said it quite emphatically with great emotion like I HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY or Martin Luther King saying I HAVE A DREAM!) and I ran upstairs to fetch the basin.

By the time I got back downstairs, Dad was back to playing Solitaire, and Mom was curled up on the couch watching Bonanza. She had forgotten all about it, and so we had to start all over.

“I need to take off your socks…”

“I’m not taking off my socks…” etc etc

The entire taking off the socks thing took the remainder of the day, but eventually mom had nice soft feet and carefully trimmed nails. I offered to paint them red, but she wouldn’t hear of it! Those of you who know Mom know red toenails are a sin.

So, I guess the lesson in all of this is that even though you cover them with socks, your toenails still have to be trimmed. Or no matter how long you have been wearing that wig, you still need to wash your hair. There is probably a deeper lesson, but I’ll leave you to figure out what it is.

Oh, and that thing you been trying to cover up all these years?  Deal with it or someone else will!

Love covers all wrongs…Prov 3:12