One of the last things that my Mother ever gave me was a hairbrush.

This is a rather serendipitous revelation for me because I always loved my Mother’s hairbrushes.

Even as a little girl, no matter how many hairbrushes my Mother would supply me with, it was always her hairbrush that I would reach for first.

I know she found it frustrating, but I really didn’t care.

Yes, I loved her and her hair brushes that much.

My Mother did not look happy when she handed me this last hairbrush.

It was on the small side. It had a little black plastic handle and tiny white bristles. It looked very plain.

“Do you want to know how much I paid for this brush,” she asked me?

“How much?” I responded.

“Twenty-eight dollars.”

“Really, how did that happen?”

“I was paying my bill at the hairdressers when I saw the brush under their glass counter. I liked the small size of it and thought it would be perfect for my purse.”

Looking at the brush, I surmised that twenty-eight dollars was about the right price you would pay for a gourmet hairbrush at the beauty salon.

Mother continued:

It wasn’t until I got to the car that I looked at my credit card receipt and saw that the bill was rather high. That’s when I noticed that they charged me $28 for the hairbrush.”

“Why didn’t you return it?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Do you like it,” she asked me.

“Yes,” I said running the brush through my long hair.

“It will do just fine, thank you.”

Now… fast forward fourteen months:

I was not looking forward to May 14, 2015.

This day marks the one year anniversary since my Mother’s passing.

I lost her at 6 AM. It was a bright and sunny morning, just as peaceful as her passing.

As I reported to work for my midnight shift, I was confident that I could keep my thoughts positive and not give in to the sadness of this day.

At one point of the shift I went to the ladies room. It was hard not to think about her.

Seeing my unkempt hair in the mirror, I resolved to brush it out and rebraid it.

There was something about brushing out my hair that I always found soothing.

Looking at the brush in my hand I noticed that it was the brush that Mother gave me forteen months earlier.

The sight of it and the circumstances in which I received it brought me joy, and I immediately felt better.

If only I could go back to the moments in which she gave me that brush and tell her what a comfort it would be to her daughter less than a year and a half later.

Maybe then, she wouldn’t have been so unhappy about paying so much for that small little hairbrush that would wind up in her daughter’s jacket pocket. A brush which is both cherished and used daily.

In June of last year I wrote a series of sixty blog posts dedicated to my Mother’s memory.

The first blog post was titled “The Last Promise” which was about my last promise to my Mother.

I gave my promise that I would keep on breathing for her.

Well…

It’s one year later.

…

Still breathing!
🙂