Wigs have come a LONG way since the 70’s, haven’t they?!
My first wig experience lasted all of 1 day! I was 9 years old when my mother bought me my a wig from K-Mart. I’d wanted one so bad because I thought it would be the answer to my prayers.
I was positive as soon as I returned to school sporting my new do, there’d be no more teasing from kids in my 4th grade class anymore!
Kids don’t care or even understand that my baldness was a result of the intense chemotherapy I’d been receiving for over a year due to Leukemia. I was out for recess that first day I returned to school when two boys decided to snatch it from my head and play monkey in the middle with it.While listening to the laughs from all the kids on the playground, I desperately tried to get it back.It was only after a teacher stopped the game that it was returned to me but by that time, I’d already run inside, curled up into a ball sobbing in the coat room.
It will forever go down as one of the worst days of my life and still brings me tears even 40 something years later. Back then, it felt harder to survive that day than it was to survive the cancer. It forever changed the me I’d been before.
When my hair returned it was no longer blonde, no longer thick and pretty like it has been but I was grateful for its return. I’m grateful to have hair but I’m not particularly fond of it. It’s fine, thin and has always been a source of insecurity.
I have recently discovered and fell in love with wigs! I’m lucky enough that for me, it’s just for fun but so many women suffer from thinning hair or complete hair loss due to myriad of diseases including cancer and Alopeccia.
We women all face insecurities in one form or another.
Whether out out of necessity or fashion, the wearing of alternative hair is becoming more and more normalized and I am here for all of it!
As your mother, remembering this heart-rending moment in your young life, I'm back there with you again, as if it had happened just yesterday. I'd like to be able to say that I felt that day "that kids were just being kids," but that was not at all how your Dad and I were feeling. We were pissed! You were already, as a young child, experiencing the pain and sickness of your disease, and the pain and sickness of its hopeful cure. Your Dad and I, and your two brothers, were so very afraid that we'd lose you and the idea of you having to suffer this indignity in front of your school mates was almost more than we coul…