Ponytails, Buns, & The Blessing of Small Mercies

Grief finds its way into even the smallest cracks. Having suffered through the bangs and large rim glasses of the 90s, my late wife longed to protect our girls from the world of bowl haircuts. Always possessing an eye for artistic design, April delighted in doing the girls up like Elsa or Belle and in sending them off to school with some new braid that she had picked up from a YouTube tutorial. One needed to only look at my girls’ hair to know that they had a mom that loved them.

Now, such glances reveal them to be some of the tiniest victims of this world’s brokenness…to be motherless. Though April longed to impart some basic hair skills to our eldest daughter, April’s final demise proved so quick and so violent and my daughter so young, that my dear bride could not teach my then kindergartener (much less her little sister) the ins and outs of braiding, brushing, and updos. At her death, April had to entrust their innocent little locks to my calloused hands. Though my little sister has done her best to educate me on the finer points of brushing and even braiding (don’t ask), I remain a rather incompetent hairdresser. Now, every knotted tangle and slightly imperfect ponytail serves a fresh reminder of what was and what is no more.

Though grief has seeped into this mundane rhythm of our lives, goodness has still managed to sprout out of this tiny manifestation of brokenness. In case you’re wondering, I do not reference my hair skills. They still serve as one of the greatest impetuses for the girl’s prayer life.

Rather with each passing day, I have seen my girls embrace the sweet, feminine resolve which so defined their mother and which so enriched our lives the last years. The girls have pushed through my world of Churchill bobbleheads and autographed football helmets and have begun to craft their own ‘ice cream buns,’ braids, and complex ponytails. This little grace which April and I feared would disappear after her death has resurfaced in the most sincere and sweetest of ways. Even in a bun, one can discover the mercies of God.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. – James 1:17