Journal of a Living Lady #167
Nancy White Kelly
Yesterday was Buddy’s 70th birthday. Where have the years gone? He was such a young man when I married him. Gradually his distinctively black hair has changed to silver and pushed away from his forehead.
For quite a while I have noticed traces of dark hair in the sink and on the pillow cases. I gently tried to make Buddy aware of this unappealing sight: “Honey, either the spooky, feral, black cat that we see occasionally out the back window is sleuthing around in our bathroom and bedroom or your hair has passed its prime.” Buddy didn’t get it.
“Okay,” I said, trying to simplify with a metaphor. “Let me put it this way. Bald Mountain is becoming progressively bleak and has lost its peak...in the sink!” Buddy gave me a blank stare..
It was time for bluntness. “Honey. You are loosing your hair all over the place. Do something about it.”
“Oh, he replied,” rolling his eyes. I have hardly noticed any errant black hair since.
In guilt and retrospect, I can only imagine how Buddy felt when seeing me for the first time without even a wisp of hair. I never waited around for my hair to completely fall out. This happens like clockwork on day 17 with most chemotherapy. In rebellion, I purposefully circumvented the hair villain. On day 16 I shaved my head entirely.
Buddy, being the gentleman and country boy that he is, never let on like my baldness bothered him. It is hard not to notice that your wife’s head looks like a semi-transparent bowling ball with streaks of bluish-red.
If Buddy spoke in riddles, metaphors, and hyperbole as I am prone to do, I think he might have responded this way: “No hair here or there. There’s no hair anywhere. Do not despair if you aren’t square.”
Sometimes Buddy’s expresses himself through humorous art. Imagine him with a magic marker in hand. Like the skilled surgeon he is not, Buddy would draw in a hairline on my brow and neckline and then dot my slick cranium cover all over like the Nancy of Sluggo fame. (Honest. I was named after her.)
But back to Buddy’s hair or lack of it. In our marriage, comical revenge is inevitable. Buddy takes his criticism in stride until the timing is right. On my bed pillow is a pithy, tongue-in-cheek note saying, “By the way, I killed the black cat.”
nancyk@alltel.net Order the book, Journal of a Living Lady. Send $15 to Kelly Publications, PO Box 285, Young Harris, GA 30582.
June 6, 2002
