Lira1802
Well, my grandmother finally passed. Her death wasn’t a huge shock to the family, she knew where she was going, but it was hard to go on. After the funeral and burial, my mother and I started to clear everything out of her old apartment.
The place was well kept and tidy, gran ensured that her home was impeccable long after she was gone. Everything was in its place and some of it was labeled to where it was supposed to go to after the elder’s final breath. My mother put me in charge of the kitchen as she cleaned out the bedroom.
I worked dutifully at the task for about an hour or two. After that, I heard the door to the apartment open and close. Assuming that the noise was just mother, I went back to my job. But as I was clearing out the cupboards, my eyes saw something odd, very odd.
My grandmother was standing on the border between the kitchen and living room, my heart skipped a beat three times, my eyes began to fill with tears. I dropped the rag I was holding in my hand and ran into my grandmother’s arms. She was not cold to the touch as we embraced. Through my reddened eyes, I saw that she was younger and more jovial than the body in the casket would have you believe. Her grey hair was still short and curled in that iconic hairstyle she had when she had laid down for her big nap, no bedhead. The teeth she used to smile at me were real, dentures had all but disappeared.
”I thought I lost you”,I sobbed into her shoulder,”And now-“
”Ah, Abby”,the woman consoled me,”Sh, sh. Everything’s alright”
I never wanted to stop hugging her but gran pulled away slightly and looked me up and down.
”You’re becoming the woman I always knew you could be”, she smiled warmly, stroking my auburn hair lovingly,”But a woman has short, tidy hair. No?”
My face gave off a confused look as I replied,”Well, I haven’t had time to go to the salon because of the fu-“
”Oh, that’s no problem”,grandma said, going and putting a chair in the middle of the kitchen floor,”We’ll have you cleaned up in no time”
She gestured for me to sit in the chair and, I don’t know what force was pushing me on, my feet walked me to the chair and I sat in it. With bated breath, I watched as my grandmother gathered up my hair and produced a hair clamp out of thin air to secure it all to the top of my head. Also from nowhere, the old woman flipped a cape about my body. It was white and light blue in a quilt-like pattern. Fastened tightly around my neck, my grandmother smoothed out the sheet before removing the hair clamp. My hair fell down to my breast and grandma used a comb to sifted through it with a comb. She rounded the crown of my head and with the hair, gran molded it into a tight bun.
The palpitations of my heart increased every second I was in that chair. My nerves tightened as I warily asked,”How short does my hair have to be for my womanhood”
”As short as I cut it”,grandma replied, continuing to comb through the hair. I don’t know when, but soon, I heard a snap and a buzzing sound. There was no peeking as my neck refused to turn or, for that matter, move at all. A vibrating sensation rattled my brain as I could feel my hair getting lighter and lighter by the second. When I could grandmother in my peripheral vision, I saw that she was grinning widely. She maneuvered the device up my right temple and when she was done with that side, she did the same to the left.
”There we are”,grandma chuckled as the buzzing came to an end,”Cute as a button. Now, let’s get that mop top cut, trimmed, and styled shall we”
“I-I”,I could only say as my grandmother went back to work. She undid the bun up top and I felt the water as she started to wet my hair. With comb and scissors, she cut my remaining long hair in half and halved it again. Shorter and shorter, my hair went, until it was about five inches.
“Here we are”,grandma finished up trimming the back even shorter than the front. When she put down her tools, my grandmother used a soft brush to dust me free of hair on my face and shoulders. She gave me a mirror and asked,”How do you like it?”
I was stunned, absolutely shocked. My elder had buzzed down the back and sides of my head to almost nothing. The crown of my head was shorter in the back but stuck out just past my forehead in the front.
“It’s looks great”,was the only thing I thought of saying.
”I’m sorry we have to cut your hair this short”,she apologized,”But you’re a woman now and I expect you to keep this hair neat and tidy or a little longer but no more than eight inches, you hear”
”Will do, ma’am”,I unintentionally blurted out.
”Good”,grandma loosened up the cape and took it off of me. I didn’t get up right away so I just watched as grandma doted over my hair, teasing it with her fingers. Suddenly, I could feel her fingers no more. My head could finally turn around to see no one there. She would only live on in my mind now.
