Lock of Hair:

Above my grandmother's bed hung a frame, and underneath the glass was a picture of a painting of a baby from an advertisement. As each of her 12 grandchildren were born, she taped a lock of the baby's hair on top of the picture. Next to each lock she wrote in script our first and middle names and the dates of our births. You could tell from far away who the oldest ones were by the yellowing of the tape and the fading of the ink. Some of the locks were curls and some were straight. Some were black, some brown, and a few -- like mine -- were blond. As a young child, her bedroom was the first place I went when we visited. As I jumped on the bed to get a closer look, I would zero in on my lock of hair with "Janet Ann" next to it -- I knew just where it was located in the frame. I'm not sure why I loved it so much or why I had to look at it everytime I was there, but maybe it was because it meant family and I was an important part. Maybe it was because to me it meant that I belonged.