I found my first gray hair about a month ago. I was getting ready to climb into bed when I spotted it—right above my forehead. Later, a friend asked if I would color my hair to cover up the grays. Maybe get some spring highlights?
I haven’t dyed my hair since college, which is a story in itself. The summer of 2015, I dyed my hair a different color every Friday night. One week I was blonde, the next strawberry blonde, followed by a few shades of brunette. Those colors are probably a generous description. The dye came from a box and the application was done at 11pm when I should have been getting some sleep.
Since Joseph and I’s wedding in 2017, I haven’t dyed my hair. Don’t get me wrong, I have made hair appointments and brought home box dye kits. But, because he knows me, Joseph has always asked me the “why” behind my desire to go blonde or get highlights. It was almost always my attempt to control a controllable in a stressful season. The reasons for the stressors were varied, but I found myself reaching for the dye box whenever I wanted to be sure of something—even if it was just that my hair would look like the color on the box top.
I’ve thought about whether I’ll return to the dye box or the stylist chair after gray hairs crop up. Then I’d have a reason, an easy “why” behind booking the appointment or browsing the hair color aisle at Target: covering up those grays and dyeing my roots.
Joseph found his first gray hair a while back. When he pointed it out to me, I thought about how truly blessed I am to grow old (and look old) next to the man that I love.
This is a desire that was prayed over us in the nuptial blessing at our wedding years ago: “Grant that, reaching at last together the fullness of years for which they hope, they may come to the life of the blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
We’ve been blessed with children and with the Lord’s grace, we’re becoming virtuous parents. We pray to grow old together and see our children’s children. When I start to see those gray hairs, I’m reminded of that blessing and the privilege of growing another year older with Joseph by my side.
I know there are no guarantees in our marriage and that not every couple experiences growing old together. Just a few months ago we drove back to our hometown to bury Joseph’s grandmother. She passed away after ninety-one years of life. We buried her by her husband, who passed away forty-eight years before her.
There’s a picture from our wedding day on a side table in our bedroom. Every once in a while I’ll glance at it and smile. We were so young—twenty-three and twenty-one. Fresh out of college, we had no idea at the joy and suffering ahead of us.
Sometimes we name our gray hairs: "Parenting three kids four and under,” we christen one. “Medicaid application” we jokingly call another. But the reality is that the hard and good of each passing year is reflected in the new wrinkles, the gray hairs, the way our bodies ache after an afternoon working in the garden. And those years are passing—they’re flying by. Weren’t we just the young newlyweds? Now we’ve known each other for almost a decade. Gray hairs and all, I love being known by this man.
I often see my mom looking back at me when I wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. The way the my eyes wrinkle around the edges when I smile, it looks just like her.
Sometimes total strangers will speak into our resemblance. “You must be Mary’s daughter!” they exclaim in the grocery store. And it’s true. I look just like my mom. And she looks so much like her mom.
We all even sound alike. My girls stopped me in the middle of a picture book because “You sounded just like Nana Mimi and we had to make sure it was still you reading to us!”
As I see these gray hairs come in, I’m reminded of the way my grandmother’s gray hairs framed her face. How her hair had a beautiful wave to it. I think about the wrinkles around her mouth and what her eyes looked like when she laughed.
I hold this act of remembering so much closer now that my grandma isn’t here anymore. When I catch glimpses of my grandma or my mom in the reflection in the mirror, I welcome them like old friends.
I’m part of a family. Not a perfect one (no one is). But my family. Full of stories and history and these gray hairs remind me of the women who came before me and made me into the woman and the mother I am today.
My stomach bears witness to the reality of growing three children inside of me. Of the birth of two of them and the loss of one. My hips are covered in progesterone deposits from the injections that were necessary to bring one of those babies into the world. Wrinkles around my eyes tell of decades of laughter and smiles. Those gray hairs, which seem to multiply weekly, remind me of the hard and good work of parenting three young kids at once.
So no, I’m not dyeing my roots. I’m looking forward to growing old and looking older with the man I love. I’m welcoming that family resemblance. And the reality is that I’m just getting older.
And that is a total gift.
Now onto this month’s edition of Naptime Notes—I continue to toy with the idea of renaming the newsletter “Bedtime Notes,” but I’m a sucker for alliteration. I’m typing this up after a Holy Thursday full of almost setting Maeve’s hair on fire during our at-home Tenebrae Service and staying up way too late to make hot cross buns.
Read on for the books I’m reading, the latest episodes the Letters to Women podcast, and a perfect poem for the Triduum.
Songs I’m playing on repeat:
The books and Substack reads keeping me up at night:
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. I’m (re)reading this book with my book club this month!
North Woods by Daniel Mason. I’m just a few chapters in, but the house in this story seems to be one of the main characters and I love it.
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. Another re-read! I haven’t read all the way through this beautiful work since college, and I’m enjoying reading it again in a season of motherhood.
The books I’m reading (and re-reading!) with the Langr littles:
Umbrella by Taro Yashima // The Quiltmaker’s Gift by Jeff Brumbeau // Float by Daniel Miyares // Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco
A question for you:
New episodes of the Letters to Women podcast!
The Letters to Mothers season continues with conversations on discerning family size, adoption, foster care, burnout, and emotional regulation! These conversations were so much fun to record and I’m excited to share them with you!
An eclectic collection of links to some my favorites this month:
I can’t wait to give this to my princess-loving oldest for her birthday this spring // This quiet liturgy for the end of a day when so much is left undone // So excited to wander around this new children’s literary museum this weekend // A beautiful resource on how to actually celebrate all fifty days of Easter // This magazine on our coffee table is getting us off our phones and into some great conversations //
A quote that has me thinking:
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.
-C.S. Lewis, ‘Mere Christianity’
A poem to leave you with:
Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot is a poem I revisit often. The last line in this section of “East Coker” has been on my mind this week and I think it’s the perfect poem to end this newsletter with as we enter into Good Friday:
The wounded surgeon plies the steel That questions the distempered part; Beneath the bleeding hands we feel The sharp compassion of the healer's art Resolving the enigma of the fever chart. Our only health is the disease If we obey the dying nurse Whose constant care is not to please But to remind of our, and Adam's curse, And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse. The whole earth is our hospital Endowed by the ruined millionaire, Wherein, if we do well, we shall Die of the absolute paternal care That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere. The chill ascends from feet to knees, The fever sings in mental wires. If to be warmed, then I must freeze And quake in frigid purgatorial fires Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars. The dripping blood our only drink, The bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we like to think That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood— Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
Thank you for reading along! I pray you have a blessed rest of your Holy Week and a truly restful and joyful Easter!
In His Sacred Heart,
Chloe
I haven’t found any gray hairs yet but I told my hair dresser that I don’t think I’ll color them when I do and she said “just you wait until they actually start to come in” and now it’s just a challenge 😂