My mother exhibits up at my entrance door in the course of the afternoon, unannounced.
“I’m prepared for a wig,” she declares, strolling proper previous me and pulling off her coat. I’ve requested her repeatedly to warn me earlier than she exhibits up, however she by no means has, not as soon as. Then once more, I preserve letting her in.
“A wig!” I reply, cautiously delighted, and slightly confused. She’s been bald as an egg from chemo for months; I ponder what has shifted. However I’m thrilled with this clear directive — one thing we will truly do for her, for as soon as — that I shut my laptop computer and provide to make us lunch.
She calls out wig details from my breakfast nook, as I take a bag of Dealer Joe’s gnocchi from the freezer and dump it in a pan. “So, there’s pretend hair and actual hair,” she says. “Pretend-hair wigs final six months on common. Actual hair is dearer, but it surely lasts for over a 12 months.”
“How a lot are we speaking about?”
“A couple of hundred versus a thousand, I feel.” She appears at me and I look again, spatula within the air, attempting to maintain my face clean — to sidestep the topic of “lasting,” and months and years. Since her most cancers analysis, she’s had a full-day surgical procedure, two hospital stays, genetic sequencing, and 6 rounds of chemo. Every milestone has led to extra dangerous information. The five-year survival charge for leiomyosarcoma is 14 p.c, I do know that by coronary heart. Every little thing I learn says she has 9 to fifteen months to stay. (She will likely be gone in lower than a 12 months, however we don’t know that but.) “Somebody needs to be in that 14 p.c,” she tells me, every time I counsel she begin withdrawing her retirement early. So, we eat lunch and make plans to take a look at a wig retailer this night after which see a film.
Arriving at Wigland, we creep round for 10 minutes, ready for the subsequent free staffer. We stroll shyly down the rows of disembodied show heads, exchanging amused glances however afraid to the touch something. The low ceilings and dangerous lighting, the dead-eyed stares of the wig mannequins — all of it feels weighted with that means, and I combat the urge to flee.
When it’s our flip to be helped, Brian, the proprietor, is cautious with us, his method sidelong. “How a lot are you aware about wigs?” he asks with tender curiosity. “Completely nothing!” I reply, too keen. Brian doesn’t miss a beat. First, he tells us about artificial wigs, which, he stresses, can’t be uncovered to warmth. You must watch out reaching into the oven, or the bangs will frizzle. I snort nervously, then fear it is likely to be inappropriate on this setting. Wigs are so near a joke, or a gag, but additionally, crucially, under no circumstances.
Blessedly, my amusement solely appears to encourage Brian. He grins and reminds us to be aware of the dishwasher, too — the recent steam. I’m amazed, my dread giving strategy to admiration. The issues folks — wig folks — undergo, whereas folks like me stay blithely clueless. “Oh, sure, and also you wish to keep away from barbecues,” he provides, a twinkle in his eye. I wish to say we’re experiencing camaraderie. Isn’t the world humorous? Isn’t being human humiliating? Ha!
Lastly, my mother sits to be fitted, and now Brian actually shines. He places on the wig cap with such evident care: “Does that really feel okay? How is your scalp doing with the remedies? I do know it may be further delicate.”
Mother lights up below his attentive gaze. “It appears like a fishnet stocking!” she says of the wig cap, embracing the absurdity. “It certain does.” He adjusts her. “One optimistic in all that is that you’ve an excellent head for wigs.” Mother replies: “Actually?” as flattered and disbelieving as a toddler.
Brian needs a way of what she seemed like, earlier than. Recently I’ve resisted trying again at previous images, the place she appears a lot youthful and lively, however now I soar on the alternative to scroll again by way of my telephone. There she is: medium-brown hair to her shoulders, reddish-blonde highlights framing her face. She used a curling iron virtually on daily basis, for so long as I may keep in mind. I proudly hand Brian my telephone — my stunning mom! — and he exhibits no unhappiness or remorse when he sees her; simply squints at her hair after which rushes off, a person on a mission.
He returns with a stack of wigs, referring to them as “her” and “she,” which brings me pleasure every time. They appear alive in his fingers when he slides them out of their containers — an array of shoulder-length brunettes, graying auburns, and varied gradients of salt-and-pepper. They seem like my mom to me — like some long-lost physique half. Like perhaps her hair was right here in Wigland the entire time?
The primary he presents to us is a chestnut bob with bangs. She appears each not-quite-right and a lot extra proper than she did a second in the past. She is given again to me, briefly. I snort gleefully, and take so many images. The subsequent one is just too grey — grayer than she was. My mother laughs in horror, saying she appears like her mom. She does look precisely like Gram, who died only a few years in the past at 95, an age that, barring a miracle, my mom won’t ever see. She doesn’t wish to seem like her mother, however I would like her to. I would like her to be grey, to have softened, for time to have elapsed, for us to now not be on this second. I would like her to age, to stay. I wish to have a mother who has made it to the part of life the place her hair is nearly fully white.
Brian has one other one, however he’s nervous we gained’t prefer it. “She’s a little bit of a multitude,” he tells us. “I’m a little bit of a multitude,” Mother laughs. She’s shoulder-length with a swoopy bang, and the shade is near what mother’s as soon as was: a tasteful mix of gray and soiled blonde. Fairly excellent, we agree. The one, most likely.
At Brian’s urging, we go to the window to see her in pure gentle. I take a photograph of each of us, smiling. We’re grinning truly. I really feel immense reduction. We glance so regular. Possibly she’s proper, perhaps her physician and I’ve written her off prematurely, given up too quickly. Why am I unable to stay within the hopeful place my mom does? The place a 14 p.c likelihood of being alive in 5 years feels vital, price attempting for? The place being improper isn’t the worst factor that may occur to you?
We take extra images. Mother by no means resists taking footage with me now, which I take as a nasty signal. Like we each know there are solely so many left. Brian sits her again within the chair and explains all of the tweaks we will make to the wig. Thinning it right here and there, shortening the again. No want for a hairdresser, Brian says, smiling. He can do it himself, if we belief him.
“We belief you!” I blurt, with out checking with my mother. After all we belief him, or I do. I do know that Brian needs extra for my mom than she does for herself. He’ll make it higher, this wig we love already, that’s $220. He can have her again to us in only a few days, he says. I wish to be like him, to see folks at their most susceptible and know that I can enhance their lives — not interpersonally, however with my very own very particular ability.
Again the automobile, I do a three-point flip, directing us towards the movie show. By the point I shift from reverse to drive, I’m jubilant. “I didn’t assume we’d truly purchase one as we speak!” I say, trying over at Mother, now becoming her wool beanie again on her bald head. “Me neither!” she solutions. It looks like we’re two youngsters who simply received our ears pierced, or one thing equally healthful and indulgent. I ponder what else we will do — how else we will chase this sense, earlier than it’s now not out there to us.
Meaghan O’Connell is freelance author and editor and the creator of the 2018 memoir And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready. Yow will discover her work in New York Journal, Romper, The New York Instances, and her publication, What The Living Do.
P.S. The Dead Dad Club, and nine life lessons I learned after my cancer diagnosis.
(Prime photograph by Jerusha/Unsplash.)
