Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo.

“Dad, what are those white bits in your beard,” the little one asked me the other day. I rubbed my chin, thinking a few stray crumbs from the sandwich I’d eaten at lunch were lingering. “They’re still there,” she said helpfully. She disappeared, and returned moments later with a shaving mirror. “Look!”

I took the mirror, and realised she was talking about the grey highlights that peppered the otherwise dark brown hair. Even though I look at my beard every day, this close-up scrutiny revealed much more grey than I remembered. “They’re grey hairs,” I said to her. “They mean Daddy’s getting older.” She looked at me; you could almost see the cogs turning as she processed this information. “They’re in your hair too,” she said, and ran off to play with her sisters.

I sat there for a long moment, looking into the mirror, holding it this way and that, wondering when the occasional grey hair had turned into this epidemic. My hair was looking a bit on the scruffy side, which wasn’t helping matters, so I decided it was time for a hair cut. Out came the clippers, off came the hair. As it fell to the floor in small clumps I tried not to dwell on the fact that there were more grey flecks in it than usual. Was it real, or had the little one’s observations just sparked the onset of paranoia.

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