This is what grief looks like...

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Putting a Brave Face On It

This is the first day I've put on makeup since my mom (z"l) died on June 4th:

Pat said, "You look like your mother. At first, I thought that was a younger picture of your mother."

It has been 13 weeks since my last haircut. At first, I was honoring Shloshim, but now, I have three reasons for not cutting my hair:

1. When it's longer, it's wavier and my mom's (z"l) hair was wavy; it's a way of hanging onto her.
2. I feel young in my grief, not youthful, but like a teen again, like I was when my dad (z"l) died and my hair was longer then, too.
3. The longer my hair is, the more vulnerable I feel for whatever gender-stereotype reasons and it makes sense to me that my outside should match the way I feel inside these days.

This picture is not flattering, I know, but it's really how things are right now and I felt like documenting this time.