As I approached a workplace meeting the other day, I saw one of my female colleagues who is battling cancer.  For the first time I can remember, she was without a wig.  Her short pixie-type hair was quite different than the full head of curls she once had.  As soon as I saw her, I mentioned that I loved her hair.  She said that her young daughter had insisted that she not wear a wig that day.

I’m so glad.  My love of her hair wasn’t as much about the style or length as much as it was about what it represented about her.

It is so easy for us to pass judgment about such things as hair.  That probably makes sense in a society in which so much stock is put in how a woman’s hair in particular, looks.  Just think about the commercials.  The overwhelming message for women is clearly a goal of “long, luxurious, shiny” hair (preferably blonde).  Since I’m African American and wear a natural, those commercials at every turn go right in one eyeball and out the other, but believe me, we get our own equivalent version.  I consider it foolishness, but that’s just me. Thank God more black women are tuning out this noise and realizing the value and innate beauty of their natural hair, complete with its tightly curled (for the most part) nature and the unlimited possibilities it presents.

For me, my colleague’s hair spoke to more than just a hairstyle.  It was an incredibly powerful badge of honor that so accurately reflected her courageous, untiring battle to stay alive.  Though I know she has sacrificed far more in her battle, if a head of hair was all she sacrificed for that privilege, it was a small price to pay.  Having the courage to wear her own natural hair was small in comparison to the courage it must have taken for her to face the notion of dying and leaving her life and family, including two young children.  No matter how dire the diagnosis, her update emails were always full of life, courage, fortitude and bravery.   How beautiful is that? 

I can imagine that in caucasian culture, dominated as it is by images of Madison Avenue’s perfect depictions of beauty that impact girls from the moment they are born and long-tressed blonde dolls are thrust into their hands as toys,  it would not be easy to face the idea of losing something to which society attaches so much value.  Women are judged by friends, family and perfect strangers on the “quality,” length, “grade,” color, and style of their hair from a very young  age.  It must feel totally scary to think of losing something you’ve never had to think about, not realizing it played such a seemingly crucial role in your life until you no longer have it.

When I see women with short hair, whether I know if it is by choice or otherwise, given the value placed on hair in our culture, I tend to think they are brave women to be willing to cut it off and show their faces uncovered by the curtain so many others hide behind.  When it is not cut, but instead lost, the value is even greater.  Seeing a head bald from the ravages of chemotherapy or other illness-fighting treatments gives a face to courage, struggle, and the will to overcome, to not go quietly into that good night.  I don’t look at it and think “bald, poor thing” or “whoa! bad hair day?”  

I look at it and think, “What an incredibly courageous woman.”

To me, that kind of beauty is worth valuing far more than a head of “luxurious” hair that simply reflects being a slave to society’s view of what is beautiful or worthy.  

Not wear a wig?  Absolutely. You Go girl!  Be proud of your courage and fortitude and thereby teach us all a lesson about what we value.