186. Untangling My Lost Hair – Elizabeth Benedict
Suleika Jaouad, Ugly Beauty at the Jungle Salon, 2022
Coming up against our mortality is like dangling at the edge of a cliff. Will you fall, or will you find your way to safety?
Shortly before I was to start chemotherapy in 2017, my sister, who has long, beautiful, carefully coiffed hair, phoned and asked eagerly, "Do you want me to shave my head in solidarity?" I was stunned by her offer and said "no" immediately. I’d said nothing about shaving my head—I had no interest in it. The idea came entirely from her.
As I faced losing my hair, I wanted to slink away and hide. I wanted no grand gestures, no drama, no consults with hairdressers. Their advice would’ve been like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; nothing would make me less bald. I bought a wig and a few little hats, which I called “cancer hats,” though I could barely say the c-word even to myself. When I mentioned losing my hair to my grown stepdaughter, whose gorgeous hair falls to the middle of her back, she said, “I think bald heads are cool.” I did not agree.
Yet when my hair came out in strands and then in clumps, I didn’t mourn. I was more worried about the future and whether I’d be around for it. One day, I grabbed my locks, took scissors, and snipped just below my ears. The rest didn’t completely fall out, just thinned to mere wisps. I wore a hat whenever I went out—so easy in wintertime. When my hair grew back in the spring, my neighbors noticed. “Wow! New haircut!” It took a few seconds for me to summon a response: “I just wanted something different.”
Coming up against our mortality is like dangling at the edge of a cliff. Will you fall, or will you find your way to safety? It’s a bracing experience, a trauma, and keeping my illness to myself felt like a suit of armor. When my sister offered to make the public gesture of shaving her head, it bumped up against my instinct to hide.
It took months to see through clouds of fear and to understand her offer for what it was: evidence of love. She was willing to cut off her treasured hair if it would help when I lost mine. Years later, with my hair and my health back, I can see more clearly and accept more graciously. I had gone through such contortions to hide my illness that I could not recognize the bright light of love when it shined on me.
– Elizabeth Benedict
