I remember days like this as if they were yesterday. My lil sis Aimee and I sitting between moms legs to get our (hair done). We always tried to get the other to go first as the daily pain was not one of the highlights of our day. Every morning like clock work mom would say "come on girls, time to do your hair." We had to get up extra early as there were two of us and mom wasn't the best or most skilled (hair doer) there was. Mom being white also added to the fact. Mom did fine, but it just took her longer. We also had rather (nice) hair, so that was a plus in her favor. I remember her always saying..."if only you two had hair like your brother Jason, we could be finished in half the time." I must admit, Jason had beautiful hair. A girl would die for what he took for granted. We always looked forward to Saturdays because we could push back our pain and torture a couple of hours. Mom however would NEVER let us go around nappy or unkempt. She always took pride in the way her babies looked and people always complimented my parents on what well behaved and nice children they had. And we were. We wanted our parents to be proud.

Oh we were no angels by far...at home we had our fights and battles like all children but when
we were out we knew how to act and never would have brought shame on our parents.
I remember when we were very small we had an old plastic bucket we used to keep little odd toys in and every morning we used to dump out the treasures held within and take the bucket to mom so she could inflict our daily pain upon us. A few times we mysteriously couldn't find the (bucket) but that did not get us out of our hair being done. Oh no, mom would just go find some phone books and pillows and build us up high enough so she could start doing hair.

As we grew older and taller the bucket was replaced with what we called the "piggy chair".
It was a step stool and the reason it was called that is we each had a huge bank...Aimee and I had plastic baby dolls. They were about two feet high. Aimee's was fluorescent pink and mine was baby blue. We always had the three banks together. Ours on each side of Jason's piggy. He sat on the step stool. It was a plastic pig about the same height as our babies. He always put the bank on the stool to rest between the dolls so that is where the phrase "piggy chair" came from. As with the bucket, every morning when we heard mom call "Cathy, Aimee...go get my comb", one of us would run to moms room and the other would go and take Mr. Piggy off his throne to borrow his royal chair for the daily ritual.

Of course with my luck, I was blessed with the hair of three little girls. I remember mom always sighing when she came to me and then she would say..."Lord Lord, whatever am I going to do with all this hair." I would hold my head and scrunch up my shoulders trying to keep from feeling the pain. Aimee was never blessed with all the hair I had or still do for that matter. Hers was always thin. She has dark brown hair where I have jet black. I favor my father the most of all the kids. The ebony hair and huge pinchable cheeks. I am also told by countless people I have his eyes. That makes me very happy, as I pray someday when I have children they will look like their grandfather. My heart aches sometimes when I think I will never get the chance to see my father hold or play with his grandchildren. I guess that is one reason I write Letters to Myself...A Reflection. I write them for myself, but I also write them so someday my children and my nieces and nephews will be able to know their grandfather. I want them to be able to know what a wonderful man and father he was........... I guess this little trip down memory lane has ended up being another Reflection.

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"Ahhhh these wonderful days seem like only yesterday."

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