Beyond the Byline: A brush and a scent keep us close

Jun. 20—You wouldn't know it by looking at me today, but I once had quite a mop of hair.

But growing up in the 1960s, when everything was changing in the world, my hair looked more like a frightened porcupine than a typical hippie sitting in an alfalfa field in Bethel, N.Y., listening to the best music ever.

My hair was wiry — it grew outward, rather than downward. Barbers would have to sharpen their scissors and razors before and after they cut my hair.

What is left is what Seinfeld's George Costanza would call "the remnants of a once great civilization."

When I see pictures of me with that hair, I cringe. What was I thinking?

But before my attempt to follow the long-haired trend of the late sixties, my hair was a bit more manageable — kind of wavy that a little dab of Brylcreem couldn't really tame.

So combing or brushing my hair was an adventure. It would take some time and great effort to get my hair to look acceptable, to say the least.

And when I couldn't get it right — which was most days — my mom would use her brush — a pink plastic brush that she used to make her hair look spectacular.

Now, Mom had a glorious head of hair. It shined from her brushing it time and again. Her magical brush — that pink sort of plastic brush — worked absolute wonders — even on my wiry hair.

So on one of those dark, dismal days following her death in May 1968, as I was packing up her stuff, I came across my Mom's hair brush. I remember looking at it and staring at it and recalling all those precious times that she had used it to brush her hair and mine.

Even at age 17, I recalled thinking just how very few those times were, and I remember trying to deal with the reality that those memories were all I had now, with no chance of new memories to be made.

I took the brush and put it in my room. I have used it every day ever since. It is the one personal possession that still connects me to my mom.

Sadly, the brush is not what it once was. The handle broke off years ago. I glued it together a few times, but it just kept breaking. Many of the plastic bristles are gone as well.

But that brush still has, in my mind, my mom's DNA, and mine, all through it.

So for 53 years now, instead of hugs and kisses from a living mother, I have had the loving caresses of that brush. When I use it to brush my hair, my mom is there again — trying to make me look presentable to the world. And those memories come alive.

This was her brush. She used it every day and night. She held it. She ran it through her hair. She used it to get me ready for school each day.

You might think this odd, but I apply the same logic to remember and think of my dad when I apply a little Old Spice cologne each day. Dad loved the smell of Old Spice. It was his go-to fragrance when he was heading out on a Saturday night.

My mom has been gone for 53 years. My dad left us in 1995.

But with a simple stroke of a tattered hair brush and a splash out of an ivory bottle of cologne, they are with me every day.