Read Left out bobby pins
- a short story about losing and finding the people we love.
Excerpt from Left out bobby pins ~
My grandmother is smaller than your average-sized person. She weighs about 25kgs and has a finite number of hairs on her head.
There are some old pictures of her from when she was as young as I am now. She is smiling a familiar smile and waving her hands over her braided hair. On closer inspection, I see a bindi on her forehead, bangles on her arms, bobby pins in her hair and hints of makeup on her cheeks and eyelids. To me, this person is a stranger. Her bobby pin is the only thing she has in common with my grandmother, who is standing next to the mirror in her room right now. She has just come out of the shower and is carefully clipping a bobby pin to her wet and oiled head – a ritual she would go on to practice until the second last day of her life.