Going grey

When you find yourself google image searching your much older brothers to see how much grey hair they have so you can compare it to yours now and it occurs to you that no brother, in the opposite position, would ever think of doing this you realize two things: 1. You don't really have strong family ties, and; 2. The Patriarchy. Yet... even though I can't not wonder how much grey hair I might have under this dye job, or worry about how thin my hair seems to be, or whether my younger-than-me husband will find me unattractive if I let my grey grow out and/or lose more hair, that doesn't paint an accurate picture of my mental state. My mood can't be located in those obsessions, or worries or thoughts. Failure, shame, anxiety are not really my moods. One's mood, one's emotional state can drift into and across and behind all events. My hair, my thoughts. Experiments. I'm not in either. Family bonds are unbreakable because they don't exist anywhere. I found myself arguing with my dead mother today. I realized recently that my lack of a father for most of my life *might* have been a detriment to me. It had never occurred to me before that his death was (is?)  a personal loss rather than just an unjust fact. I want to grow out my grey so I can see my father. That old silver fox whose hair was almost white by fifty and who died when he was 3 years younger than I am now. He would  let me brush his hair when my sister, the only one of us with stick-straight black locks like Cher, would refuse my touch. "You'll get it dirty!" So I would climb on top of the sofa behind my dad and comb his gray hair into some odd shape. The disappointment. Too short, too grey. My mom wore a wig until her dying day. Her thin head of hair without the wig made her look like a baby. Cute but weird. The first thing my brother told me after he saw her dead body: "They had her wig on her. She would have been relieved." You wouldn't believe how important hair was if I told you.