Sugar on top

As far back as I can remember, my mother had gorgeous hair. She developed a swath of white in the front that contrasted with her black-blue hair when she was pregnant with me.

At least half her strands had turned when I was a preschooler, and by the time I reached middle school, it was completely white. Like a mound of sugar in sunlight. More glittery than a blingee. 

Everyone raved about her hair, and she wore it proudly. Not once did I hear her contemplate coloring it. With all that white, she looked at least a decade younger than her chronological age.

I will always remember the Tibetan nursing assistant who was the last person to wash her snowy cap of hair, just days before she died. Somehow the act seemed reverent and fitting.

All said, my mother was the quintessential role model for going "gray."

So it puzzles me why I haven't done the same.

If I'm lucky (and my roots give me every reason to believe so) I appear to be keeping under the wraps of sepia and golden highlights a show of cool steeliness.

Each month, as I watch the march of white push back the pretend brown, I ask myself:

Is it time?

Image: Artic wolf "seeker" by Mike Lentz