An Old Steel Comb and the Past

Standing there doing my hair before work this morning with my broken old steel comb, the memories came suddenly and unexpectedly back.

It's been around longer than me, that comb. In its heyday, it was probably brushing bad fashion hairstyles before dances in fifties and sixties' Ireland, Brill Creamed up and ready for a Ceili, or some Rock and Roll. I started using it as a secondary student in Dublin some time after his death. And after a lot of persuading, I was allowed to take it with me to Japan when I came here after university. Now it sits on a shelf in yet another house in central Tokyo, far away from its home, and is only called into the briefest of action every weekday morning. It doesn't travel in suit jacket pockets to dances anymore.

How can an old steel comb take on so much importance? Maybe it's the things it knows and the memories it holds. The places it's been and the eras it's seen. The owners it's had and their connection. Its role as a bridge between generations that never had a chance to really meet.

But somewhere along the line of my life an old steel comb became my most loved possession. Or put another way, one of the people I loved most became an old steel comb. Things they are never inanimate, and some days you have to let the wave of sadness they send wash over you, and just stand there, admitting you are drenched. And even smile about it. They never talk about losing a father but gaining a comb.