Divine timing

My mom went for her second round of Chemotherapy on Thursday, February 25th. Up until that point she had not really lost a lot of hair, basically just some larger clumps, but if you know my mom and her hair, you'd know it would take about 100 fist fulls of hair to even create a small indentation. She has been blessed with lioness locks for sure. I arrived in Nashville on Saturday the 27th to find both of my parents looking very happy. Though my mom looked tired, she was still as beautiful as ever. She had "all" of her hair, or so it seemed, though she did experience some big chunking in the shower that morning. Sunday morning came and her head was very tender, though that is probably understating it. The hair follicles were VERY sore and it was causing her great discomfort. She managed to make it to church and used a pretty head wrap to help control the strays that were falling out uncontrollably. By the afternoon she was in tears from the pain and wasn't aware that her follicles would be so tender. I told her to come sit by me and I would run my fingers through her hair to help sooth the pain. Surprisingly it was helping a lot. So she put her head in my lap and just let me play with it for a couple hours. The act of running my fingers through it allowed the roots to release themselves and within a three hour period, she had lost about 95% of her hair....all the while her bangs holding out for dear life!!

Seeing my mom on Saturday wasn't much different than any other time I would see her after a long period of time. She always looks happy to see me and she looked "normal". It wasn't until last night when she put her head in my lap, watching her hair come out in my hands that it hit me... "my mom has cancer"... the more I saw her bald head come through, the more it sank in, "she's really sick". I wasn't suppose to come to Nashville till the the week of March 11th. My dad said it was Divine timing that I was here to do this for my mom because it left him feeling nauseated and sad. It was hard to watch him tear up as each stroke of her hair made the pile next to me bigger and bigger. I am not really sure how I even got through it, but as I tucked her into bed last night and I touched her head to say goodnight, I too knew in that moment, it was truly Divine timing and an honor to be able to help my mom let go of her hair.

She is beautiful bald, okay, well almost bald!! She is currently napping and I am waiting for her to wake up so that we can go ahead and shave the rest of it off. Her bangs are very tender and when I spoke with the oncologist nurse today, she said getting rid of the weight will probably help. I am glad this part is almost done for her. Losing your hair (for a woman at least) is like losing apart of what defines you. Losing her femininity. I hope when she sees her reflection, she will be able to see her pretty "small and bald" as a sign that she is fighting....

`Sarah Langdon-Kelly