Embrace your gray hair!

Hi everyone,

As I perused the headlines for interesting discussions about hair, I came across the headline "Gray Hair Celebrated in New Exhibit".  YAAYYYY!  I for one adore gray hair, better said, silver hair.  Men and women blessed with such manes look like silver foxes.  They typically have a certain regality, a beauty that has been EARNED.  So, I am thrilled that the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, CA (ww.buckinstitute.org) is exhibiting photos that depict women sporting their natural silver hair.   The Huffington Post wrote an article about the exhibit:  Huffington Post article about "SILVER: A State of Mind".

I got my first silver hair in my early teens.  I plucked it out and taped it into a keepsake book (I believe I still have it somewhere...so much for keepsakes, I need to do a better job of keeping track of them!)  I loved my silver hair because it connected me to my Father.  He too had a patch of silver hair right in the front of his head and, really, nowhere else (he now shaves his head bald so I don't get to see the patch of silver anymore).  I guess it was in my genes because I too developed a splash of silver in the same spot; you may have noticed my splash of silver in pictures.  My Mother has beautiful silver hair.  She's been stopped by strangers who compliment her on her beautiful, silver tresses.

I can thank both of my parents for my healthy attitude about graying hair.  When I used to dye my locs, I specifically requested that they section of my silver hair so that it wouldn't be scathed by the dye.  The silver patch had sort of become a unique trait and I didn't want dye to make me blend in with everyone else.  My patch has spread and I have silver hairs throughout my hair.  I still wear them with pride, in fact, I feel that my silver hair reflects wisdom that the Lord has given me (Proverbs 16:31).  It's something to be embraced in my opinion.

That's why I never quite understand it when aging people try to cover up the inevitable procession of life.  We are ALL going to get older (if we're blessed to live long enough).  Why is there such an effort to erase signs of aging, especially when it comes to graying hair?  I think one reason is that graying hair is symbolic of our mortality.  Our hair, like changing colors of foliage, represents a change of seasons.  I believe that some fear this change and so they clutch to youthful memories of times when hair was not gray.  What do you think?

Portrait of Nina Grieg, ca 1934; image owned by the University of Bergen
Brief Information on Ms. Grieg