I am 37 years old and going grey.

And just to give you a framework here – so you can better understand where I’m coming from – I have never dyed my hair.  Never.  Not in the 90s when all my friends were gleefully experimenting with pink and blue Kool-Aid in theirs.  Not even when they begged and pleaded for me to join in the fun at sleepovers, Alanis Morissette blaring loudly on the radio in the background.  Not now, some 20-odd years later, when so many mama friends find a cut and color rejuvenating, a blessed time away from the nagging responsibilities of work and home (and by the way, no condemnation here – absolutely none! – again, just trying to help set the stage, give a context for the thoughts that will follow…)

Part of it is, I’m a simple girl – frugal, practical, plain.  Still think of myself as belonging to the farm, really, to that place which values heartiness and determination and grit over charm and elegance any day.  Shop at the Goodwill, fix an awful lot of rice and beans for my family of six, think the $30 I spend once a year getting my hair cut in a salon is a stretch, kind of cringe plunking down the cash before hurrying out the door, always feeling a bit out of place in such a fancy establishment.  Wear only a touch of make-up and am self-conscious even about that.  Feel more comfortable, really, without shimmering pink eyelids and lightly darkened eyelashes.  As just me.  In my younger years, it embarrassed me some, this knowing myself to be ‘simple,’ but now, nearing 40, I’m at peace with being rather low-maintenance, largely utilitarian, one who needs little and finds joy in the mundane of life.  So yes, part of my decision to keep my grey hair can be attributed to this.

Another part is that, for as long as I can remember, I have been resistant to what I perceive to be not genuine, not real.  I’m not sure where this resistance came from exactly, can’t remember if it was something I was taught, or absorbed somehow, or if it was just something always within me.  But my fifth grade teacher, whose name I will purposefully omit to protect the innocent, she wore these ultra-long, red, obvious-even-to-me-at-10-years-old, faux fingernails.  And even then, something about it, about her, it didn’t sit right with me.  And so instead of focusing on diagramming sentences and long division and making my diorama on The Trumpeter of Krakow, I remember sitting there in her classroom wondering: maybe she has something to hide, is trying to cover something up, wants us to think something about her that isn’t true.  Instead of seeing beauty, pure and true there, I saw falseness, a facade of sorts.

Contrast that with my Grandma Hoegemeyer.  Her hands!  They weren’t what most people would call beautiful, I guess.  Her skin there was wrinkled and loose, almost translucent in color – those soft, blue-grey veins protruding prominently, like crisscrossing rivers of sorts across a barren and weathered wilderness.  She kept her fingernails fairly short, conducive to hard work.  For these were the hands that canned jam, dug potatoes from the garden, hung wash out on the line, showed me how to embroider and cross-stitch, held a ping pong paddle skillfully, down there in the farmhouse basement.  And to me, as a young girl, sitting next to her on her green and white floral sofa – my little fingers slowly tracing those veins, reveling in the miracle of their sweet silkiness – there was nothing better, nothing more beautiful.  And Grandma, she didn’t try to cover them up, or restore them to their youthful state.  But always seemed to accept her hands, her very self, for what it was, what she was.  I saw such beauty in that.  In such vulnerability and contentment.

And this too has motivated me, in part, to accept each grey hair as it appears – this desire, not to conceal my blemishes, inside and out, but to offer myself in total vulnerability and surrender, just as I am, however imperfect; to avoid covering up that which is me, that which was created in His image; to demonstrate to a watching world that authentic living is to be valued and appreciated over a carefully crafted, overwhelmingly faux image.

So, a little more background here.  I worked at a retirement home for a few years, in my early 20s, maybe you already know?  And they had a program there, my employer, where employees could take classes from local universities in the aging/healthcare profession, at no cost to them.  Hence, having relatively few responsibilities and a whole lot of youthful motivation at time, I ended up pursuing a Master’s degree in Gerontology, the study of aging.  Drove from Lincoln to Omaha every Tuesday evening, after a full day of work – spent 6 hours in class and then drove back, arriving home after midnight, and getting up to head to work again early the next morning.  Took classes like Human Lifespan Development, Death and Dying, the Biology of Aging, the Psychology of Aging, and Long-Term Care Alternatives.  Spent more time than most 20-somethings, I think, pondering growing old, dying, death.

And here is the astounding message that I came away with after those two years, crammed full of study: Getting old is hard.  The body slowing down, creaking and aching, bodily functions all atwitter.  The mind, at times, slowing too, to the point where mamas don’t know the names and faces of their used-to-be babies, can’t remember how to chew and swallow, what year it is, or why they can’t just go home already.  Driver’s licenses, and hence, most all freedom, taken away.  Money worries, living on a fixed income.  A society that looks at you and sees an ‘unproductive’ member – an unattractive, wrinkled, out-of-touch, irrelevant, unimportant shell of a person.  Loneliness.  Loss.  Attending yet another friend or loved one’s funeral service, many who are held dear, dying off slowly, one by one.  Knowing, ever-aware that death for you too is imminent.  Trying to prepare for that, both internally and externally, wondering what it is that you will leave behind.  And where it is exactly that you will be going next.

Each grey hair then points the way – the way to the inevitable slowing, and likely suffering, that will come.  None of us can escape it, except in death.  And so, we can try and run from time, hide behind creams and powders, needles, tucks, and dyes; try to deny the inevitable.  Or we can press into the coming suffering, expect it, claim it, embrace it as a welcome friend, giving thanks for the days, the years, the memories, the life lessons, the people, the Love and Beauty we’ve encountered here.  And we can model this to a watching world, to a culture that values youth and independence, and frowns upon (or at the very least, largely ignores) the aged and the needy, certainly doesn’t cherish or hold these in high regard on whole.  Can demonstrate growing old without fear, without regret.  Showing how the brokenness of our bodies and minds does nothing to break our spirits, as we cling tightly to the One who didn’t design death, the Master and Maker and Creator of Life itself.  Persevering in Hope, even in and through loss after loss after loss, as we become ever weak and disfigured and vulnerable.

And similarly this.  What is at the root of my going grey, at the very heart of it all for me: Aging well, I think, looks like growing more and more into the image of Christ, by His grace, while simultaneously becoming less and less ‘ourselves’.  Growing old, it’s like being carved into a magnificent sculpture – the parts that weren’t necessary or eternal being chiseled right off, the bits of ‘us’ left in a heap on the ground, and what remains there, at the very end, when the work is complete?  Looks an awful lot like Christ.

My grey hair then is a symbol to me of becoming less the young girl I once was in body, mind, and spirit; my frame of skin and bones, my very self decaying and fading away.  And celebrating that fact!  Because in losing myself, I am only ever gaining the Fullness and Wholeness and Goodness which is Him.  As the days and years plod on, getting more and more tired of a life of brokenness, and more and more ready for reunion with Him!  Maturing in faith, pressing on in a life of Love and Joy and Peace while I am here, outward facing, myself a thirsty beggar who’s stumbled upon Water, clumsily attempting to lead others there to the Well.

And so, when I look in the mirror, my grey hair reminds me.  Reminds me to find my identity in Him, to live vulnerably and fearlessly, caring more about authenticity than image, grateful for the opportunity to suffer and love and learn here.  Reminds me to celebrate and find Beauty in each and every day, in each and every person, to not take anything or anyone for granted.  Reminds me too that He must increase and I must decrease, that being chiseled into the image of Christ is often painful, but is always worth the end result.  Ultimately, my grey hair is just another gift that points me back to Him, serves to redirect my eyes, my heart, Upward.

And so, I see my grey.  And smile.

 

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