I don’t function well when I’m in pain. This sounds like a “no-duh” moment, but really… my mother-in-law said in concern while we were living with her, “I don’t think you’re as strong as you ought to be.” When sick I tend to curl up and rest, goof off, do low-energy things. My mother-in-law, and my father-in-law, and my father, all worked through it. My husband kept going; he even drove 40 minutes in to work while barfing, to open the restaurant, because there was no other manager available to open the building and get things started for the day.

I don’t know how my mother handled being sick, because I literally don’t ever remember her being sick. My sister and I went to public school; my mother may have hustled us out the door and then laid down. We wouldn’t know it. There would be snacks and then supper for us when we got home. My dad could cook and I remember him cooking meals, but I thought that was because he was the one who could get up at the crack of dawn when we needed to eat before school. This was before most students ate at the school. I don’t really remember younger breakfasts, but when I was on a growth spurt in high school, they served: eggs, oatmeal, whole wheat toast, milk, and half a grapefruit. They insisted we sit down to eat it. My dad, especially, was so on a roll in the mornings that the one time I accidentally set my alarm for an hour early, we all got up and did our morning routines, including putting on coats and backpacks, then sat on the couch leaning back on our full packs to doze for a half hour.

I was the first to get up in the morning. Not my choice! I shared a room with my younger sister. This was the 1980s; we had early morning seminary and then went straight to school afterwards. I showered every day, combed my hair, and called it good; my sister showered, dried her long hair with a blow dryer and then spent time curling her bangs into the huge puff of curls demanded by the times. I hated the curling iron; it burnt people. I hated the smell of hairspray; it stung my nose. She wore makeup; I couldn’t stand to have stuff on my face that might wipe off and stain things during the day. She covered her zits; I didn’t care, as long as there were no white heads showing. Red, scabbed over, swollen, didn’t matter; leave it. White heads were another matter. Those had to be squeezed and eliminated. Red you couldn’t do anything about, except get makeup in it which I felt would make it worse.

As a fourteen year old, I grew my hair out. My mother had me take care of it, and I did… sort of. It looked like a string mop. I combed and brushed it, but didn’t braid or even tie it in a ponytail. It hung all over, halfway down my back. Finally the summer before my freshman high school year my mother cut it all off, leaving no more than four inches anywhere. I looked dorky. It was not styled at all, no feathering, no taking into account the shape of my face. Just chopped off.

The local hair salon had a promotion in which they picked a teen to makeover. They picked me, possibly out of pity. Perms were in; they chose to give me an afro. Tight curls all over my head, so my blond hair stood out in a ball. It was crazy easy to take care of; I loved it. I did not enjoy the perm process; it took forever and it stank to high heaven. But then I could rinse my hair once a day and use a wide-toothed comb called a pik to floof up the curls. I got a perm every year until I left high school.

Probably a good thing there were no black women in town.