I went to bed angry, and I woke up infuriated. I've mentioned on this board before one of my hair inspirations is an aunt of mine. In my 29 years on this earth, I've never seen her real hair live and up close (she ALWAYS wears a wig), only in old pics from her childhood up until the late 70's. In fact, when my mother moved here, she was told by her roommate she needed to come down to a local spot to see two of the baddest afros in town, one's a man and the other's a woman. Turned out to be my daddy and my auntie
. Anyway, her hair was like this enigma to the younger kids and we always wanted to see Aunt Joise's hair because according to family consensus, she had the prettiest of all the 11 siblings. Fast forward to yesterday. My mom calls me and asks if I'll go with her to see Aunt Joise and wash her hair. Her step daughter relaxed her hair and didn't neutralize so now it's hard and matted. My aunt suffered a stroke the day after my grandmother's funeral back in October so her mobility has become very limited and she can no longer do her own hair. I'm like okay and then mom says "Bring scissors." This scares me but I've already regressed to 10 yrs old when I asked Aunt Joise how long her hair was under that wig and she said "right here" and drew a line across her back near her waist w/her index finger. I'm thinking I'll do anything I can to save her hair, and I really want to see it. I get there and she takes off her wig and takes out the hair pins and I was speechless. This skank, because of her negligence, had my aunts hair so hard and matted in like 3" wide, MBL DREADS. I tried and tried to detangle and after about an hour my aunt said "Go ahead and cut it, it grows fast anyway." I had to cut her to TWA status, but it had the prettiest, softest curls. I told her that chick not only didn't fully neutralize, she clearly didn't try to detangle her hair prior to relaxing, nor did she comb her hair or anything while rinsing. I was shaking and the more I think about it, the more upset I get. I told my aunt, "Don't let anybody w/o hair touch your hair-EVER." I never let a bald head person in my head, unless they're bald by choice. I told her I'd be there every week to take care of it, but I called my other 4 aunts and they were heated too and the 2 that live here agreed to make sure she's good as well. It just made me sad to think that after all these years, when I finally get to see her hair, it's because I have to cut it all off. In a way though, she looks even more regal than before. She has beautiful, striking features and the short cut is definitely an enhancement. Even though as soon as we got done, she slapped that wig back on her head
. Some things just never change.

