Hair Today Gone Tomorrow
Saturday, June 26, 2010 at 12:22PM Hair on your pillowcase in the morning is one thing. Hair on your keyboard is quite another. I’m getting a buzz cut.
All along, my daughters have been waiting with itchy clipper fingers to jump in and create fun and strange designs with my hair. They’re getting their opportunity this afternoon, with Marci’s supervision, to play Beauty School Dropout with my head as the victim.
What they deign to leave — which hopefully is just a buzzcut and not that freaky Airbender thing Taylor keeps talking about — will fall out soon enough anyway. I know this now due to some amazingly candid help from cancer buddy Jan Lovell, whom I used to work with at the Detroit News. Jan had a full beard and a thick head of hair into his sixties which he lost about a year ago, then grew back. He was laid off too. Yeah, we have some commonality.
But the craziest part of all this is I hear guys have a tougher time emotionally with the hair loss than women. How is that possible? Person after person I speak with say female cancer patients seem to have a quiet reserve and are fine with the loss whereas they typically see guys going all to pieces. Women who pride themselves on long, luxurious locks seem to handle it better than guys like me with haircuts left over from the 70s.
It just goes to reinforce one of my long-term core beliefs that women are stronger than men. My ladies are proof positive of this. They have a tremendous power within them to handle this cancer talk without getting too freaked out or worried about the future. And yet they seem to know when it’s okay to let go and be scared, (don’t you ladies?). Even my Mom, who’s been here daily because she can’t be anywhere else, openly shares her fears but also her fierce Rodney advocacy continually.
With all the crap that’s been handed our family this year, there’s also been a lot of equal and opposite reactions to that crap. In that respect, Skye’s been going around quoting Sarah Silverman, “When life hands you AIDS, you just gotta make Lemonaids.”
Sick, yes. Funny, definitely.
Reader Comments (7)
Gotta love a high school girl who quotes Sarah Silverman.
Hair is overrated. You've got good face, Rodney. That smile needs no cap of hair. And it will come back. Like the lawns destroyed every summer by the old guy who picks up the Roundup instead of the Weed-b-gone at the hardware--whose wife tells everyone she can of his faux pas--the lawn will eventually return...weedless. We will make no bald jokes. We will don sunglasses if the glare becomes too great. We will look it like a removal of the distraction from your happy face--like cutting your bangs. We will see it as trendy and cool, like the thousands of hip guys who intentionally shave heads and attend award shows. We will not look at this as a loss but gain...an indicator the treatment is effective and potent. Something like the little pop-up device in the turkey that lets us know our expecations are alligning with the treatment. And who knows, it may return wavy...with a cowlick that reflects your resilience and provides a daughter another funny line!
Challenging moments....really tough.
Transitions out of your control...suck.
Your ladies with wicked senses of humor and great kindness...priceless.
Trusting that they made a challenging moment into a moment also full of some laughter and love.
late June haiku
baldness, a sick joke
deciduous leaves and teeth
falling hair grows back
did Rik really just compare you to a roasting turkey?
Man! That's just fowl IMO.
ooops...well, the hair exit express tellis us the L is gettin' done in! The trouble with metaphors....
hang in there Rodney. It sounds like you and your wonderful ladies are helping each other through this with love and laughter!