ditching vanity, for my mother
April 16, 2010
By Liz
Three months after my mother’s brain cancer surgery, my sister got married. My mother’s hair hadn’t grown back yet so before the wedding my sister and I took her shopping for a wig. I was just out of college and my sister had wedding bills and we didn’t have much money.
The wigs in our price range were just awful. In some, my mother looked like Norman Bates’ mother from the movie “Psycho.” In other’s she looked like a spoof of a housewife in a 1950’s soap commercial. In one wig she reminded me of a childhood friend’s grandmother – the one I always thought looked like she had a cake on her head. Many of the wigs didn’t even look like they were made from hair. They looked more like Halloween costumes.
At first we were dismayed at the cost of the realistic wigs. There was no way we could afford one. But we rallied when my mother said she rather go bald than look ridiculous and so we left the hairpieces behind and went shopping for scarves. My mother chose a dark pink silk wrap. I can picture her wearing it turban style at the rehearsal dinner. She looked gorgeous.
Fast forward fifteen years and I am badly in need of a haircut. My hair has absolutely no shape right now; it just hangs limp around my shoulders and the ends are splitting. I could stand to chop at least two inches. However, I am contemplating growing it even longer and then donating it to be used for wigs for cancer patients. I expect to have enough hair by Labor Day weekend.
But I don’t know if I will make it. Summers in Boston are hot and having lots of hair isn’t fun. Blow drying all of it can take forever. And even, then, it probably won’t look good because of humidity. And just when I want to call my hairdresser for an appointment, I think of my mother. When faced with cancer she was practical, not impulsive. She was brave, not vain. She was a role model. I am not her, but I am her daughter. And if growing my hair a few more inches means someone like her can afford a realistic wig someday, I can get by on five months of ponytails. Can’t I?
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