I love touching my father’s hair. I have always been enthralled by the texture of it, the lemon-scented shampoo in it, the tan color of it.
When I was little and still weaseled my fingers through the thin strands on his head, my lips could never help but uncage a grin. Whenever I was sad, it was a ritual I went through, and now that I think of it, it cheered him up too.
But when I turned five, my mother would say, “Don’t tug at your father’s hair Timmy, he’s already lost enough,” or “Big boys don’t do that, Timmy. He won’t tell you to stop… he doesn’t want you to feel hurt.”
I think she was wrong. I think when I stopped, dad felt hurt.
He used to go, “Come on, little buggarroo, come cheer me up,” and “I’ve still got some hair to spare Nina, let him have some fun.”
Still, I was a big boy. So I stopped. Somewhere, I knew he wished I had kept doing it. He wished I had ruffled his hair and maybe stopped to tickle his bald spot with a feather every once in a while.
I was certain that I would never again be as close to my dad as I was when I spent my time trying to twirl and twist his hair into pig tails and little braids. And sure enough we grew slightly apart - a hair’s length.
So today, I touched it one last time. It was my personal goodbye to him. No speeches, no wailing, no alcohol to drown the grief. I walked to his hospital bed and I touched his hair. And in those last moments we spent together, his lips couldn’t help but uncage a grin.