On Doing The Hair Of A Corpse

     Page One Hundred Fifty-Seven.
     Have I yet told the story of doing the dead woman's hair in her casket? I don't think so. For lack of a better topic today, here we go. Be prepared. It's a sad story. Really. If you're not up for a tragic story, then don't read this right now.
     I'd been doing the hair of Sue for a few years. She was some twenty years older than me and met me through her daughter Kalen. One of my best friends, Biff, had been dating Kalen for a few years and they both agreed that Sue and I would get along beautifully. I was a freelance hairdresser at this time; going to my clients' homes and servicing them in their kitchens. So Biff and Kalen fixed us up. (What a way to phrase hairdresser/client relationship. But we really did become that close.) 
     I gradually became friends to the whole family. Sue had another daughter, Meghan, whom I didn't know quite as well, 'cause she was away at college. But whenever Meghan came home and there was a family get together of any type, I was invited. Also, I eventually did the hair of Sue's sister, brother-in-law and their infant children as well. I really was in pretty tight with that family for a long time. In this context, I got to know everybody, even Sue's elderly parents who came to Cleveland occasionally on visits.
     I went to summer school in Israel in 1989. Prior to leaving, I made arrangements for my hairclients' survival in my absence. I farmed out most of my clients to various hairdresser friends. In Sue's case, she'd only need a color touch-up on her roots. So I purchased the color in advance, gave it to Sue and taught Meghan how to apply it. (Meghan was back home having graduated that spring.)
     In late August, after my return, I hosted a couple of small dinners to show off my photographs. Sue, Meghan, Kalen and Biff came to one of them and we all had a great time.
     Labor Day weekend, 1989, I received a phone call Saturday night, 2AM, from Biff. He was hysterically crying. Meghan had been driving to Cincinatti to attend her boyfriend's church picnic and was killed in a car accident which was her fault. She was 22 and was in her first month of her first job as an accountant. Sue called me too, at 8AM the next morning, not knowing that I already knew the tragedy. We all know that there's nothing you can say in those situations except the standard, "if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know".
     Sue's extremely large family began arriving early Sunday afternoon. I went over and was as gracious as possible. I'd heard what party animals they were and they'd heard how wildly eccentric I was. But nobody could really be themselves due to the circumstances. Everybody simply wanted to re-write Sue's world.
     The body viewing would be the next day, Labor Day, 2-4 and 6-8. I asked who'd be doing Meghan's hair. They explained that the funeral home has a staff hairdresser. Knowing how gravity-defying her hair was (this was the '80's after all), I volunteered to bring my comb anyhow. "Sure. If you want. We appreciate the thought" was their response. I arrived Monday, 1.30 and they came rushing out to the parking lot to meet me.
     "Jeremy, thank God you're here. It's all wrong. Meghan cannot go through eternity looking like that. Please fix it." So I did. It was a little weird. Not a lot, but a little. I was okay with doing her hair because I had to be for the sake of the family. But then, many people commented on her freckles. That was something the family hadn't though about. Apparently she was so self-conscious about them that she covered them first thing in the morning. The funeral home couldn't possibly know about that. So Sue asked me to touch up her make-up prior to the 6-8 showing. That was a little weirder. But would you say no? Of course not. I helped out in what way I could. That was the only important thing to me.
     About 17 or 18 years later Sue would die of cirrhosis. No parent ever really gets over the loss of a child, but Sue became a tragedy herself. We did have fun at her funeral though. We were all much more "ourselves". As it should be. I miss Sue. She was quite entertaining. But then, she'd probably say the same thing about me.