Shedding

Last night I was up until 1:00 am with my daughter, slowly brushing “out” all of her hair.

Out into my hands. Into my fingers. Onto the bedsheets.

She has been complaining of an itchy scalp. It was to be expected. I had initiated “the talk” with her a few times, gently massaging the idea into her mind that she might lose her hair. That she might be bald. It was not received well, as you can imagine. Violet’s thick mane of hair is one of her defining features. She never wants to cut it. Even her father is sternly against the idea. “Let it grow. It’s just so beautiful.”

And this morning, her lavish locks lay in a bowl on the bedside table.

“It’s just hair,” I’ve been saying to her, and to myself, since the beginning, knowing this day was imminent. “I’ll chop mine off, too, or shave it, or whatever you want, Violet.” And I would, too. My brother did already, over a week ago. It’s just hair. She shouldn’t have to go through it alone.

But then, getting ready for bed, when Violet asked me to take out her braids because they were knotted and itchy and driving her nuts, I realized that it wasn’t totally superficial. That hair was a symbol. It was her talisman and an essential hallmark of her identity. And it was also a huge point of contention since the day we tried to take a brush to it, all those yeasr ago. A daily battleground of anxiety and stress, where comb met chaos. Either way, her hair has always been anything but insignificant.

I sat her with her in bed as we gently unlaced her braids and tried to run our fingers through it. Thick mats held the shape tight, making it seem less like hair and more like tangled balls of wool. She pulled out a few “chunks” herself, stating rather non-dramatically that she “hated it falling out” before changing the subject to what show to watch before bed. I left it, let her fall asleep on top of the tangles. But she woke up again before midnight and let me know that they had to go.

So I curled up in the space behind her in bed and took the brush from the bedside that she hasn’t let me touch since we got here, slowly working it into her knots. With each stroke, it pulled out a mass of hair, without resistance, coating the brush. And with each pull, I cleaned the brush out, and set the hair in a bowl. It wasn’t long before the bowl was full, and bald spots appeared here and there on her scalp.

While I did it, she couldn’t see my face. And I couldn’t see hers. But as she reached for the strands and pulled them from her head, her voice was steady. “I hate this,” she’d say. But then she’d laugh. Or make a gentle comment about how much hair she had to lose, with playfulness in her voice. “Geez, mom, I do have a lot of hair!” She said, “if I’m bald in the morning, I’d like to go find a pretty hat.”

I let a few tears well up in my eyes and fall down my cheeks. They were strange tears. Maybe. Or maybe just the right kind. They were full of love and gratitude, as they all seem to be these days. Also sadness. And fear. And resolve. And acceptance. They were rich tears, from a deep part of me that knew how profound this moment was. How special. How rare, in the grand scheme of things. A moment so few will experience in such a unique and powerful way.

It was like Violet was, in that moment, shedding her skin – the person she used to be. She was emerging as something new. It was symbolic, just like the opening of a chrysalis.

At least for me, that’s what it felt like.

I was nervous this morning when she woke up, hoping she didn’t forget and praying she wouldn’t look in the mirror and be confronted with an unexpected tragedy. But she was fine. She sat up, asked if we could play charades, and looked back at her pillow. “Look, mom, the rest didn’t fall out last night. I still have some for now.”

And that was the end of the discussion. Just acceptance and moving forward. Just another example of how this kid continues to teach me the most important lessons there are to learn in this life. You can’t change what’s already happened. All you can do is more forward.

It has been a week of significant change. We received the (VERY) good news that she is doing better than expected, and can now go “home” for a few days before the next round of chemo (“home” being the Ronald McDonald house where Lucy and the grandparents are living). She gets out tomorrow, and will be able to sleep in a real bed, fight with her sister, and otherwise act like a relatively “normal” kid for awhile.

Yesterday, before her hair fell out, we spent hours playing at the playground and sliding down slides and riding a BIKE, of all things. She was ALIVE, full of energy and enthusiasm and determination.

And it was contagious. Today I feel like a new person, too, full of promise and eagerness and faith. I feel like we both shed a little something yesterday. A little “dead weight”. New days mean new perspectives. And if there’s anything we can be grateful for, at least, it’s that we won’t have a battle of the brush any time soon.