This story was written by Sharon B, one of many narrators in GOOD PEOPLE: Tales from the Better of Humanity:

It’s a brilliant day in St. Louis, Missouri, just a few days earlier than my older son’s marriage ceremony. Quickly, we’ll be sitting at banquet tables festooned with bouquets, blitzed by champagne and twinkle lights, tearing up the dance ground in our flouncy clothes and tailor-made fits, bow ties and blowouts.

Proper now, nonetheless, we’re at a taco joint, simply hanging out, brushing chip mud off our laps, yukking it up over carnitas and guac. It’s 90 levels Fahrenheit—Coca-Cola climate—so, I rise up from the desk and beeline for the merchandising machine. As I pause to fish cash out of my purse, a girl sitting along with her good friend at a close-by desk calls out—“Woman! I like your haircut. It’s so cute!” 

I chortle ruefully. “It’s!” The good friend insists. She tells me I’m “courageous.”

At this level, my hair’s possibly half an inch lengthy, close-cropped, like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Child. In contrast to Mia’s, my haircut wasn’t half of a bigger story during which I’m manipulated into the arms of the satan. Not actually, anyway. However I’d positively endured a sure sort of hell.

Nonetheless, these girls don’t know that. They assume I’m edgy, cool, courageous, and I really feel compelled to set them straight. “Thanks,” I say. “However I can’t take credit score for this haircut. It was simply sort of handed to me on a [expletive] platter.”

I used to be recognized just below a 12 months in the past, at 53. No children in the home—they’d all fled the nest at that time. It was simply me, my husband, and our new, probably homicidal roommate, triple-negative breast most cancers. This new roommate didn’t pay lease; as a substitute, it took a toll. Safety, vanity, sanity, energy: Every single day, each hour, most cancers got here to gather.

In mild of this life-altering information, you may need anticipated my first query to have been one thing extra profound than “A I going to lose my hair?” I’ve since realized it’s fairly frequent—I imply, as a primary query—particularly amongst ladies. As a result of it’s not simply hair, proper? It’s a part of who we’re.

After I was a child, my hair was my crowning glory. This was again within the Seventies, so image Jan Brady: parted down the center, stick-straight, tremendous blond—so lengthy that at one level I may sit on it. I used to be the youngest, so my mother babied me a bit, brushing it, braiding it, matching my ponytail holders to my outfits. I used to be so proud. In a manner, shedding my hair meant shedding that woman—a beloved a part of myself to which I’d been tethered by literal strands, each now about to fall out. 

Two weeks into chemo, my hair was in every single place—my shoulders, my pillowcase, the sofa, the ground. Little traitors, abandoning ship simply when the crusing acquired tough. I used to be decided to regain some sense of management, take issues into my very own fingers (plus, all that hair was gross), so I known as up my daughter-in-law.

On the time, she and my son lived shut by. He was within the Navy, and my daughter-in-law is accountable for conserving his hair reduce brief. I didn’t need a stranger to be the one to chop my hair, so I requested her if she’d be prepared to do the honors—to come back aboard as barber in chief.

“Lexi,” I mentioned over the telephone. “In the present day’s the day.”

Hours later, we had been in my kitchen: the onetime locus level of a thousand chaotic mornings, numerous hurried breakfasts, sandwiches rolled into tinfoil, excessive chairs taken out and in of storage. I sat in a chair. Lexi put a sheet on the ground. She shaved my head proper there, beginning on the entrance and buzzing a path excessive of my head. Blond hair drifted to the ground. A second of silence.

“You look identical to Ben Franklin,” my husband mentioned eventually. And identical to that, we had been all laughing.

Lexi wadded up the sheet and kicked it out the again door. I simply form of sat there, feeling my head—delaying the inevitable. Lastly, I acquired up, went to the lounge, and regarded within the mirror. They let me have my area. I cried. Then, we had dinner.

A number of weeks after chemo ends, as soon as your physique clears it out of its system, you begin getting this peach fuzz. By the point my son’s marriage ceremony rolled round, my peach fuzz had graduated into one thing resembling a buzz reduce. Thank goodness, the most cancers was kicked, however so was my hair. To me, it felt like a flashing neon arrow: CANCER. So, for the day of the marriage, I resolved to put on a wig. True, it will be itchy and uncomfortable, however the very last thing I wished to do was draw consideration to myself and doubtlessly bum individuals out. Today was concerning the bride and groom, not the gloom and doom.

Anyway, I find yourself explaining all this to the women on the taco joint. The entire rattling saga simply got here pouring out. I’m crying. They’re crying. I imply, typically, after I image it, I can’t assist however chortle. (Three random girls bawling like idiots whereas salsa music performs within the background? Admit it, it’s humorous.)

However right here’s the factor: These ladies stood their floor. Completely refused to budge on the principle level. My haircut is so cute. Actually! They cherished it.

A pair years after the marriage, that restaurant closed down for the pandemic. After they reopened, I skilled this surge of pleasure, like, Oh good, I’ll see these ladies once more! However I’m not going to see these ladies once more. And even when I did, I wouldn’t acknowledge them. They wouldn’t acknowledge me. It was simply, you recognize, this second in time. That impacted us. Impacted me.

It’s a second I keep in mind fondly each time I look by means of my son’s marriage ceremony images. There I’m, “cute” haircut included. Which is to say, I didn’t find yourself sporting a wig that day. Due to these girls, I had the boldness to go with out it.

Excerpted from GOOD PEOPLE: Tales from the Better of Humanity, Nationwide Geographic (September 3, 2024)