All I want for Christmas is my hair

Today I reached up to my head and ran my fingers through my hair.  I know most people do this without a second thought.  I was one of those people last year.  After I learned I would loose it all to the chemo, I was given hopeful news.

I can still remember the words of my sweet nurse Kelly when she said, "The chemo will stop and you will have a cute, short cut by Christmas."  Those words were my lifeline.  In March, Christmas felt like a long way off.

I remember gazing jealously at the women in shampoo commercials with their beautiful, long locks.  Even my friends and my own family became objects of my envy.  "Why did I have to loose my hair?" I would think bitterly to myself.  "I loved mine more than all of them together."

And I really did love mine.  I loved braiding it and twisting it around my finger.  I loved the complements people would gush to me,  "Your hair is so pretty and long!" I got that a lot.  But what I think I miss the most is tucking stray pieces behind my ear.  For some reason nothing made me feel more like a princess.  The Bible wasn't lying when it said a woman's hair was her crown!  And now my crown was gone.  And I felt very... ugly.

  Crying myself to sleep at night was only the tip of the iceberg.  My very soul felt smothered every time I looked in a mirror.  I even considered covering the mirrors in my room and not looking in one until my hair grew out.  It was one of the lowest points for me.  No matter how anything else was going, I just couldn't be happy because I didn't have hair.

  Sometimes I wonder how I got through.  Looking back I think I lived in the first state of grief: denial.  I shoved a hat or scarf on my head and just avoided looking in mirrors.  I laughed about my bald head with my friends but when I was alone I did my best not to think about it.  "Christmas," I would think to myself, "I will have hair by Christmas."

So here is December.  My hair grows again (though not fast enough for my liking).  I both love and hate my new do.  Love because it is hair on my head and it is mine.  Hate because it is only a shadow of what it once was.  But at least my wish came true.  I will have hair for Christmas.