My Unchanging Hair

Sitting in the swivel chair, my stylist's eyes popped out of her head like a bug as she asks what we are changing today. Beads of sweat form on my face, and my stomach is like a ship in a storm. I had booked a color and cut appointment.

“Just a little bit off” I choke.

“Do you still want to do blonde highlights?” She inquires. 

“No, thank you” I say. 

This is how my haircut always goes: I dream of a bob or a slight balayage but once I get in the chair, I choke and lie that I only wanted a few inches off the ends. For twenty years I have always gotten the same haircut, and that may never change. It’s not a choice that I make but an obligation. My anxiety holds me hostage, it shackles me to the same haircut. During my childhood, my hair was free, it was constantly in messy ponytails filled with knots that desperately needed to be brushed through by my mother like I was late for school. My perspective evolved when I became a preteen. I envied the girls with Barbie-blonde hair who perfectly executed each trend. I craved a new look. But I was loyal to my roots. It became the only thing I was capable of thinking about. I could change my makeup, clothes, but I could never alter my hair. People remind me that I look exactly like my mother, with every facial feature down to the nose, lips, and height, but my hair is all from my dad. It’s the last thing I have from him. 

When my dad first got sick, the most noticeable symptom was paralysis. Making him unable to go to work and walk around the house without the assistance of a wheelchair. The cancer, Intravascular Lymphoma, was diagnosed two months later and then the gruesome chemotherapy started. Removing his hair, the one trait of him that I can see in myself. He hid his newly exposed scalp when the clumps of hair that fell out became noticeable with patches of hair missing. The signature tattered gray New Balance cap remained on his head, even when he slept, hiding the sickness behind the lining of his cap. Yet, the pain and paralysis that forced him into a wheelchair served as a constant reminder of all the things he was incapable of doing. Hindering him from any physical activity. He described the pain as a taser that was held on his legs; no way of knowing when the pain would come or how long it would last. I watched him clinch his fists and jaw as he writhed in pain. 

I was fearful when my dad looked at my hair. The hair he passed down to me. My long brown hair is the distinct feature that makes me resemble my dad. Constant thoughts were racing through my head, I wondered if it hurt for him to look at me. If he thought about death or leaving our family behind. We never discussed his death. My anxiety consumed me too much to give my mind room to think about it. I had to constantly focus on leveling my breaths, like the changing pressures of a hospital bed which ensures a bedridden patient doesn’t get sores. When he was home from treatment, we slept in the living room. He needed to sleep on a hospital grade bed which sat across from the tv. I needed to sleep on the couch so my mind could steady knowing that he was still breathing. Where I slept on the couch resembled a bed, with sheets, pillows, and my stuffed bear, that didn’t leave the couch for the weeks we slept across the living room from one another. I never wanted to acknowledge that it was a possibility. In my mind there was not a world where I existed without him.

*** 

The summer I was eleven, my dad and I fished all day, trying to catch the perfect bass. After dinner he needed to go to the store to get more bait for the next day of fishing. While the sun set, I ran, tripping over my own feet, to the front seat of the Toyota, with the summer heat lingering, my legs stuck to the leather. A song that sounded familiar turned on, he knew the words but I didn’t. “This song is my favorite, it reminds me of you and mom,” he said. 

I laughed and asked for the next song. My dad grabbed a CD and smiled as the next track started. It was my favorite song. The windows rolled down and the wind formed knots in my hair as we bumped along the dirt road joyfully screaming the lyrics. Vulnerable in a moment that only a father and daughter could share. He wouldn’t dare to sing “Candy Girl” by New Edition in front of anyone else.

***

On Christmas morning, My mom, brother, and I piled into our van. We packed our presents into the town and country van then began the drive to Duke Hospital. My dad waited for our arrival, he woke up alone on Christmas. For months the only thing I had asked for was a phone. Most kids in sixth grade wanted a phone because they wanted to keep up with their friends. Yet, I wanted it to text my dad when he was getting chemotherapy. My face lit up like a Christmas tree as I ripped open the packaging to see my first phone. I wanted to thank him. I gave him the lightest hug I have ever given anyone, careful not to pull the IV’s. I was petrified that somehow I could hurt him worse than the cancer that was actively damaging the nerves in his legs. Once we exchanged presents we had a stale hospital lunch, sandwiches and soup. We spent the rest of the day watching a movie in the cramped hospital room. Then we left the hospital without my dad, the cold air hitting our faces as we got back into the car with our unwrapped presents. 

***

My mom checked me out during lunch when I was in seventh grade. Dad needed to go to the doctor, we had done this before. Yet, her face was unmoving. She was holding back something and I noticed the circles under her eyes were darker. My mind raced. The physical therapist had praised his progress. He was regaining feeling in his legs. His hair had even started to grow back, though it looked more like peach fuzz. He was only throwing up. This is just a check up I reminded myself. Repeating it to myself over and over again, like how the waves crash onto the shore. We lived in a stilted house at the river, which made leaving difficult. That afternoon, I told my dad goodbye without a second thought as he shuffled down the stairs.

One day later, my mom walked me outside through the plain white hallway out of the intensive care unit. The walk felt as if it took twenty minutes, it took five. She needed a cigarette. Her first since dad got sick. She had a look on her face I now have only seen twice. The disgusting habit usually being one I would discourage, but now I think this is the one time I could justify her decision. She kept looking forward avoiding eye contact then took my hand in hers. I felt the dampness of tears roll down my cheeks. “He won’t make it,” she said. We sobbed silently on the way out of the hospital. My mom’s face as she told me I would be fatherless is embedded into my brain. When I saw the same face three months later, I knew before she had uttered a word that someone had died. My half-brother, Nathan, and I laid horizontally on the waiting room chairs for the next two days, awaiting our new reality.

We sat in an unfamiliar empty room. The room is saved for those who will witness someone take their last breath. After a few hours of waiting, I was prompted to say goodbye. The body I saw resembled my dad but he wasn’t the same. His baseball cap was gone, exposing his scalp and the peach fuzz that was growing back after the last round of chemotherapy. His hand rests in mine. Limp and soaking wet from tears as they rolled off my face. I said my final goodbye and I love you to a body in comatose. I thought about the time we had once screamed our favorite songs on the way to the store, without the worry of what our next days would hold. He had died unexpectedly. We were told he was cured. The cancer had spread to his brain, shutting down his organs. 

***

My morning routine is simple: put in contacts, get dressed, brush my teeth and my hair. I take the most time with my hair, precisely brushing each and every knot through. I put on the black dress that was laid out for me, it was too tight. We drive to the service while listening to the sounds of static play in between music. Christmas carols faintly play on the radio. It transports me out of a time warp that can never end. The only thing that consumes my mind is that in a mere hour and a half my father and I will be separated by six feet of dirt. 

When we arrive at the hall my mom, brother, and I stand in a line as we are greeted by our closest family and friends. “How are you?” every person repeats. 

I don’t answer. 

Why do they even feel the need to ask that? 

My dad just died. I can’t feel anything. I walk over to the casket. Looking into it for two seconds, I couldn’t bear it. His thin hair was starting to grow back from when he had stopped chemotherapy and he wasn’t wearing a cap. He normally kept his hat on like his life depended on it. I had never seen him wear anything other than jeans and a T-shirt. We kept the casket open for close family and were asked if we wanted it shut for the ceremony. My grandpa is an embalmer, he wanted my dad's presentation to be shown because he was proud. I said quietly that I wanted the casket to be closed. They didn’t close it until I had started to cry. I couldn’t bear to look at the hair my dad had just started to grow back. 

It was a false hope for recovery. Leaving me with the hair he passed down and the responsibility to leave a mark of him on the world. I have a complex relationship with my hair. The anxiety that I am succumbed to from grieving my father places me in a motionless state, unable to significantly alter my hair. However, I don’t have contemptment for the hair my dad passed down to me for a moment. Looking in the mirror to see a reflection of my father is a gift I am thankful for everyday. The process of grieving my father is nonlinear, there are days where I wish I could change my hair because it is too difficult to see a reflection of him. However, most days I am eternally grateful for the hair my father passed down to me, connecting us in a way no one else can share.