The power of a makeover: Macon woman receives gift of restoration

Everyone has sad days. Days that are paralyzed by pain, loss, grief and loneliness. 

Weary and teary days. High anxieties and low tides. 

Sad days can become sad weeks …and sad weeks can become the saddest of months. Holidays are especially difficult. When life piles on, it takes an accumulated toll.

Laura Underwood was having a sad day. Not one to play the victim, she tried not to throw a pity party.

But.

There have been a lot of “Why me, Lord?” days over the past eight years.

“We couldn’t catch a break,’’ she said. “There were big gashes and lots of paper cuts. I was 60 years old and tired of fighting.’’

In 2016, she received a heart transplant. She suffers from distal muscular dystrophy, a group of rare diseases that affect the muscular system (genetic myopathies) and can impact the heart.

 She lost movement in her legs below her knees and now “walks with my thighs.’’ The condition claimed the lives of her father, brother, sister, grandmother and great-grandmother.

Then, on July 10, 2020, her son, Kyle, died after receiving drugs laced with the synthetic opioid fentanyl, three days after his 33rd birthday.

Less than a week after their son’s death, her husband, Steve, tested positive for COVID-19. Steve, a local homebuilder, was in intensive care for three months. He spent another month in rehab, and she was not allowed to see him. She found out which one was  his window at the rehab facility in Forsyth, and she would stand outside and tap on it.

 She almost lost him. He came home in a wheelchair. They celebrated their 40th anniversary last December.

On her recent lowly day, a friend told Laura to expect a phone call. She did not know who was calling or why.

It was Ginger Huff, owner of Salon Fusion in Bonaire. Earlier in the summer, she had a life-changing tug on her heart.

“God put it on my heart to not only give away a makeover but an extraordinary experience that would transform a deserving woman from the inside out,’’ she said.

It was not so much a contest or promotion but a “chance to elevate a life,” Ginger said.

“Do you know someone who has battled life’s storms? We invite you to nominate them,’’ she posted on Facebook. “Share their testimonial journey. The raw, unfiltered truth. We want tears, laughter, and the kind of stories that give you goosebumps.’’

She reviewed the nominations to “search for the spark, the resilience, the flame that refuses to be extinguished. Each story is about a seed, waiting to blossom.’’

Laura was nominated by Judy Robinson, who is publisher and general manager of The Leader Tribune newspaper in Fort Valley. Judy also lost a son to drugs  and started a support group for grieving mothers called “Our Journey.’’ There are annual retreats at Christmas and on Mother’s Day.

Ginger said she “broke down and cried” after learning Laura’s story. She has been through her own personal struggles, and she is now on the comeback trail. In fact, she is writing a book titled “The Ginger That Never Snapped.’’

She and Laura did not meet for the first time until the day of the makeover on Sept. 9. They became fast friends … and now kindred spirits.

The “all-inclusive transformational makeover” included a haircut, color, makeup session and a massage. The gift package featured a gift card to a local boutique, haircare and skincare products, a carwash, kitchen cleaning, a professional photo shoot and dinner for two at a local restaurant.

One of the ministries Laura is involved with is called Heart @ Peace, for people in heart failure in need of a transplant.  

She said she always knew her hereditary condition was stalking her like a thief in the night. 

“It was like walking down the railroad tracks, and you can hear the train but you can’t see it,’’ she said.

She spent 13 months on the transplant list. The heart came from a young woman in Arkansas who had been in recovery from substance abuse. She was killed in a car accident returning home from rehabilitation. The other driver was under the influence.

The young lady was 33, the same age as Laura’s son when he died.

The Underwoods never had a funeral for Kyle. Their pastor and other church staff members had COVID. After a stream of visitors came through their home in the days following Kyle’s death, Steve began experiencing COVID symptoms, too.

Because of her heart transplant, Laura was worried about the vulnerability of her immune system. But she was even more worried about her husband, who had been hospitalized with boot pneumonia three years earlier. 

“As it turned out, I was asymptomatic (of COVID),’’ she said. “When Steve had boot pneumonia, his body over-reacted. His lungs filled with fluid, and we were told then if he ever got another upper respiratory illness it would probably kill him.’’

Kyle struggled with depression and substance abuse. He had been in and out of rehab. While Laura was recovering from her heart surgery at Emory, he called her with the idea of the two of them going into schools to give drug awareness talks to young people. The story was even more compelling, since her heart transplant was from a young woman who had battled those same demons.

Laura and her son never had a chance to give those talks together. She later spoke at several of the rehab facilities where he had been a patient. Kyle was cremated, and she took his ashes with her to his last rehab clinic.

“There were two or three men there who had known him,’’ she said.”It was powerful and hard for me, but I really felt his presence when I did that.’’

Laura also has made presentations at schools and churches. At one school, she poured out grains of salt, telling the students to separate them into pairs to represent fentanyl. Two grains of salt is the equivalent of enough fentanyl to kill a person.

After her heart surgery, Laura had to sell her business, Putzel’s Lighting.  It still breaks her heart to drive past the store on Georgia Avenue. In recent months, she and Steve have been displaced while renovating the home they built at Barrington Hall.

  They have a daughter, Dr. Leigh Bennett, a local dentist, and six grandchildren – three boys and three girls. Kyle was the father of two of her grandsons. They play football for an area private school, and watching their games is emotional. Their father was a football player, too.

“It’s always a battle,’’ Laura said. “When you have grandchildren from a child you lost, it just rips that wound open. I don’t think it ever heals because you see the way they look and talk and act. They are their daddy’s boys.’’

A makeover cannot make things over.

It can only help with the healing.

Ed Grisamore has been writing columns and telling stories in Macon and Middle Georgia for more than 45 years. He is the author of nine books.