speaking love to her, in the language of yarn twists

Sometimes I cry in secret, because I don't want her to know how her hard tales of life make my mama heart ache. She would stop talking about it all if she saw my tears.

She doesn't often cry, though, as she tells me her story.

Only one topic gets her own tears spilling while she recounts life in the orphanage.

"My first mommy, she want me have long hair." She sniffs. "At the orphanage..."

She trails off, as a few more tears tumble down.

"At orphanage, they shave head. I no keep hair. I be sad."

As I run my fingers through my own hair, I think of all her other stories.

My world didn't involve yarn twists before she entered my story.

For a white mama with hands damaged by rheumatoid arthritis, the ten hours it took to put them in seems excessive.

For a little girl required to sit still for all that time, it seems excessive too.

But?

I can't do much about the other stories, the ones that keep me up at night.

I can - thanks to the power of internet tutorials - do something about the story that pains her the most, though.

 

(Even if I have to ice my swollen hands afterward.) 

*Many thanks to this youtube video for direction on anchoring each twist. It's harder with the short - about 1.5in of stretched hair - length my girl currently has, but I used the same technique, after separating the hair into small sections with rubber bands the night before. (No bands stayed in her hair after that, though, to avoid breakage on the little hair she has.) Also, I still need to even up some of the ends, but you get the picture.