Laughter as brain injury medicine is healing for the heart, soul and mind.  Here I believe others will find themselves or someone they know in similar situations and laugh instead of cry!

Have you ever walked out of the house and forgot to take a quick glance in the mirror, straighten your clothing, comb your hair or simply freshen up?  Everyone does that at least periodically. Awe with brain injury, those are daily things that happen and it’s not deliberate.  So, have you ever looked like a total fool and left the house and never realized it? Just imagine how entertaining you must be to others.

I’m sure I’ve given many people not reading these posts many laughs along the way.  It’s been at my expense, but they just don’t know how to lighten up and see what truly is important in life.

My youngest niece and nephew would often fix my hair and put make-up on me.  It was “special time” we had together.  This was time that they enjoyed playing, kept them occupied and I could relax and rest. Oh, how creative they have been! I still keep that huge bag of hair products and accessories and another case of make-up just in the event a new hair style is due, or a new make-up fad comes about.

I was the Aunt who let the children play.  These were some extravagant hair creations and makeovers by youngsters.  They put hundreds of clips in my hair at one time, along with many little rubber bands and hair all over the place. I often didn’t have the energy to undo the hairdo until the next day.  It was time consuming, but if we had fun that’s all that mattered.

These do’s and makeup were as wild as they could make it.  It might look cute on a young child, but certainly not on a grown woman in public.  These two children had the wildest hair styles that no hair style magazine could ever imagine.

Besides the hair style came the make-up.  Facial make-up that went from subtle to clown-like with lipstick nearly up to my nose.  One’s normal narrow lips were lost with the deep red or bright colored fluorescent lips.  You can get the visual of what the rest of the facial make-up looked like! Oh my gosh, I don’t even think I need to explain! It was all in fun and at times my skin was bright red just from scrubbing the make-up off.

It happened to be this time I needed to go out shopping for something in the middle of summer.  I’d like to believe this only happened once, but I’ve been informed otherwise! What I forgot is that I just had my hair done, new and fresh make-up applied in the style and order of these young precious children!  Oh my … I forgot I was just at my own creative beauty and make-up artist of these beautiful children! I simply forgot.

I never realized when I left the house I had my hair done in hundreds of hair clips and heavy make-up.  If one forgets this, imagine what life is really like with all the daily forgetfulness!  So sorry, everyone doesn’t have a sense of humor!…but truly I’d never leave the house looking like that! I would have been oblivious to anyone commenting or laughing as that’s a frequent occurrence with brain injury.

Shortly after arriving home I went to bed and as I looked into the mirror to wash my face and brush my teeth I was horrified!  I even had colored teeth!  Oh well…I’m fortunate they never arrested me through the decades just for my appearance alone.