I was always one of the first kids to get dropped off at school. I hated it, but it allowed me to watch the rest of the kids as they came into our classroom. It wasn’t in a creepy, stalker way; I was just observant and had a photographic memory.
There was one little boy I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget. He was different from the other kids. His name was Wyatt.
I noticed Wyatt as he walked into our first-grade classroom every day. Again, not in a creepy way, but Wyatt was different, so I remembered him and his appearance specifically.
The first thing that separated Wyatt was that his parents didn’t walk him to class. I never saw his parents and had no idea what they looked like.
But the major thing that impressed me the most about Wyatt was his hair. He was a little boy with short, wavy hair, so you could not do much with it. Yet every day he came to school, his hair was styled differently.
Some days, I use hair spray and brush upwards. Other days, his hair was combed and gelled to the left. Sometimes, his hair was parted down the middle, flopping everywhere. But every day, it was different. I wondered why.
I thought to myself, maybe his mom is a hairstylist, and so she likes to test hair trends out on him. Or maybe his big sister likes to play with his beautiful wavy hair.
I didn’t know why this little boy’s hair differed daily until our end-of-year 1st-grade performance. Wyatt showed up a little late, and his hair wasn’t done; it all flopped down into his eyes.
As we stood on stage, all the kids, in awe, stared at our parents watching and aggressively waved to them as if we hadn’t seen them in decades. In response, the parents waved back. I glanced over at Wyatt and noticed he didn’t even wave. So I asked him where his parents were, and when he pointed them out, I immediately knew the reason why Wyatt’s hair looked so different every day.
His mom was not sitting with his dad. And when I asked him why they weren’t sitting together, I had already anticipated his response.
Wyatt replied in the most monotone voice, “They are divorced.”
Wyatt’s hair was different every day because some days his mom did it for him, and others his dad did. And then there were some days, like the day of the concert, where he was left to do his hair. Since then, I have gained a soft spot for little kids with different hairstyles daily.
