It is never "just hair"...
In August 2008, I wrote about going to the barbershop to get my final haircut before I started my chemotherapy. [Tears at the barbershop] At the time, I was just beginning my journey with breast cancer. I had only known about my cancer for a few weeks and those weeks had been a whirlwind of doctors and phone calls and tears. I was trying to be strong but I just wasn't. I just wasn't.
A few days ago, I accompanied my friend to the barbershop as she experienced this same surreal rite of passage. And she was seriously attempting to be stoic -- just as I had 3 1/2 years before. It didn't work for her any better than it had for me. I understood and yet it made me deeply sad.
She asked me to go with her, so of course I agreed to. But, even if she had not asked I had already begun hatching a plan to tag along anyway. It was one step in this journey that I
You tell yourself, "its just hair". People tell you not to worry because "it will grow back"... and while it is true that more than likely your hair will grow back, losing it this way is troubling on so many levels. It signals that all of this is real. That all of the stuff that you've been told until this point, all of these appointments with doctors, all of the needles and procedures... all of that is real. There is no turning back. And, perhaps more honestly, there is no more hiding.
See, prior to losing your hair, prior to starting your chemo... people look at you and still see you. You don't look different after you learn that you have breast cancer. You don't feel different. But cutting your hair, preparing for the inevitable onslaught of chemotherapy side-effects... that is real stuff. There is no turning back. You are now strapped into the car on the roller coaster and creeping to the top of the first hill. The shaving of the head, strips you from you... and now when people see you they see your disease too.Breast cancer is a public private disease. It is a major illness that happens in a private part of our body. This is America and we are black women in America. We don't talk about our breasts. It is impolite. It is too sexual. And if we do talk about our breasts we use terms that are either very clinical or very risque. There is no middle ground. We don't talk about our illnesses too much. We speak of people we know who pulled through. Or friends and family members who died fighting. But we struggle with dealing directly with someone who is currently fighting a serious illness. It makes us uncomfortable. Losing your hair because of breast cancer feels like a theft. You are being robbed of some piece of your femininity, some portion of your identity... and a measure of your privacy. If you opt not to wear a wig, you also become a symbol to other people and that can be difficult too.
My friend was brave. I could see (and feel) her trepidation. She didn't wear her hair low and close like I did. She is a girl who goes to the hair salon or to the braider. She wears curls and ponytails sometimes -- depending on the length of her hair. Cutting off her hair? This was uncharted territory. And it was so real which made it so raw. The barber was wonderful. She was so gentle with my friend, that it made me choke up and cry. And each time my girl got emotional and teared up as the clippers went lower and lower, I teared up with her.
I never wanted this for her. I don't want it for anyone. That trip to the barbershop reminded me of the fear that I had that one day I would look like I had cancer. It is hard to see yourself that way. [Looking like a cancer patient] I know it will take her some time before she begins to embrace this look. But she looked pretty cute -- very much like her father (laughs) -- and I think that as time goes on and the treatment gets more difficult, she will find a way to embrace this new vision of herself.
But I will never tell her that its just hair. Because it is so much more than that. Just as she is so much more than this disease. We all are.
