a 'gray've discovery

I remember the first day I discovered I had a stretch mark on my body. I was pregnant with Ammon, and it was less than a month before my 20th birthday. I found it after my morning shower: a light pink ridge on my stomache. I was shocked at the discovery. I'd heard of women who rubbed special lotions on their stomaches as to lessen the amount and depth of impending stretch marks, but I had done no such thing. But upon finding that first mark, I wish that I had. I was sad that my basically unmarked body was changing, and there was nothing I could do about it. Of course, that was just the first of many, MANY more stretch marks and scars that my pregnancies inflicted upon my body. I cried that day, for a couple of hours, for many reasons. I knew that with that stretch mark, I was changing. My body, my life would never be the same. I could never go back to what my life, my body, was before the appearance of that stretch mark. So, I cried. And with those tears, I came to accept what that stretch mark meant for me: the growth of a child inside of me, the knowledge of becoming a mother, and the fact that I was growing up. That stretch mark was like a right of passage for me into motherhood.

On the last Sunday in March this year, I was sitting next to Josh on the couch. I was gazing at him, like I frequently do, and I noticed a gray hair among the dark brunette strands on his head. I got the tweezers out and promptly plucked it. I teased him, and photographed that monumental occasion  

  

I even wrote on my facebook status "I found Josh's first gray hair tonight! And I immediately plucked it out, thus expanding his youthful looks for just a teensy bit longer". And then one of Josh's cousin's replied: "I hear if you pull one, ten come back". Which of course, as it turns out, he was right. Since that day over two months ago, I've plucked 6 more grays from Josh's head, and now his beard is becoming splotched with grays, as well. And it occurred to me this week that Josh's first gray hair I found was kind of like the first stretch mark I discovered twelve years ago. That first gray hair marked evidence of age: a change in our bodies that we can't control, a visual reminder of time passing, a sign that we are growing older. That first gray hair was a right of passage into the next stage of our lives. And just like my stretch mark, that first gray hair was, and will be, the first of many, many more.   

Unlike my crying over my first stretch mark, however, Josh didn't cry upon the discovery of his first gray hair. In fact, it seems to have affected me more than it bothers him! But, I'm sure the day that I find gray hairs in my own head, I will most likely cry enough tears for the both of us!!!