My Husband’s Humor

During the time my hair was falling out my husband got a call notifying him his mother was gravely ill. He arranged to take a personal leave from work and went to Greece for two weeks to be with her in what turned out to be her final days. Mike’s love for his mother is deep and strong and true. I knew he would be shattered when he came home and greatly in need of comfort.

Alopecia is no respecter of need. It has no sense of timing and certainly no compassion.

While Mike was gone my hair loss accelerated and I looked like a dog with rampant mange. I didn’t want Mike to come home and see me looking sickly having just left his mother on her deathbed. It was the day before his return my friend and I went hair shopping and I had the wispy mess shaved off and replaced with a wig. I gave him a head’s up by phone to avoid shock, but my wonderful little Greek was understandably lost in a fog of sorrow, grief and exhaustion and it didn’t really register.

There have been times during our 33 years of marriage when each of us has needed to lean on the other while we dealt with something too big to handle by ourselves. We have been there for each other no matter what. This time I worried I would be a horrific hindrance rather than a haven for Mike. I was afraid when I reached out to comfort him he would recoil.

My sister and brother-in-law met me at the airport to welcome Mike back. It’s a family tradition…Starbucks coffee at the airport to send off and receive family and friends. It didn’t help my confidence level that neither of them was enthusiastic about the wig. It was a sudden change and would take some getting used to.

Mike walked down the terminal ramp towards us and my heart lurched. He looked terrible. Brown circles ringed his eyes and his face was creased in places it had been smooth when he left. He looked unwell and fragile. His eyes locked on mine and held while both pairs filled with tears. The emotional interplay of years of love and support was all we saw and felt. No words needed. Everything conveyed in the gentle sway of our hug. He took a ragged breath and pulled back, looking at my head.

“So,” he said staring at my new auburn synthetic locks, “who are you and what have you done with my wife?” Everyone laughed, including Mike.

“Well, it’s a lot better than what’s underneath,” I quipped and lifted part of the hair piece to expose my naked scalp.

“Holy moly,” he said, “you’ve turned into Kojak!”

“How bad can that be?” I shot back. “He’s Greek and gorgeous!”

That night, after hours of sharing, many quiet tears and much reminiscent laughter, we went upstairs to our bedroom. I took off the wig and placed it on the yellow plastic stand I’d purchased for it and slowly turned around.

“Come to bed, Kojak,” he said and opened his arms.

Later, I picked up a book and turned on the reading lamp as Mike was dozing off, jet lag claiming the last of his energy. He murmured: “Hey Kojak….turn out the light. It’s bouncing off you head and I’ll never get to sleep.” Seconds later he was gently snoring.

I smiled, filled with gratitude for this man who had run his hands over my shaved head, noted it felt as soft as a baby’s bottom, and kissed the ridges where my eyebrows used to be. His humor was a gift of acceptance…his acceptance a gift of strength…his strength a gift of love.

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It is love that enables those of us with alopecia to become boldly bald in a world where all models of note, at least, for my generation are male: Teli Savalis, Yule Brenner, Patrick Stewart.

It must start with self love and self acceptance. When we choose to love and accept ourselves as we are, we open the doors for others to also love and accept us as we are.
We must be willing to give people time to adjust to the change and grease the wheels of change with humor. Not everyone will come around, but do you really want people in your life who are so superficial they can’t see beyond the presence or absence of your hair into the beauty and value of your personhood?

The more women who step out into life boldly bald, the less remarkable female baldness will be. I foresee a day when nobody will think anything of it at all and folks will wonder what the big deal was.

Of course, there’s a down side to that…I’ll have to find something else to blog about.

My Sister’s Hats

If my brother thought I was a pain in the rear growing up – my sister had no doubts at all. Diane was eleven when I was born.

She was a built in babysitter for me when our mother went back to work as a registered nurse in a local hospital when I was five. I was a built in chaperon for many of her dates, whether it was tagging along when she went to the beach or sneaking around the squeaky floor boards in the kitchen to spy when she said goodnight to her current beau at the back door landing. In fact, I was 26 before she actually made up her mind in favor of letting me live.

Our father died when I was 16 and our mother when I was 35 and living abroad in Greece with my husband. After our brother died three years ago, I asked Diane if she was glad she’d chosen not to strangle me on any one those numerous occasions she believed me deserving of immediate death.

“Most days,” she said. “Why?”
“It turns out I’m the only one you’ve got left.”
She visibly startled. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. You’re right,” she said softly.
“What? I’m WHAT? I'm right? RIGHT????” I bolted to the wall calendar and wrote on the day’s date in permanent Sharpie marker: “PAM WAS RIGHT!” As I returned to our Canadian Canasta game, Diane swatted me playfully in sisterly pique and we continued together to soundly trounce our husbands at cards.

What does that story have to do with living boldly bald? More than anybody, my sister suffered the emotional trauma of my hair loss. She wouldn’t look at me. She’d turn away or cover her eyes with her hand whenever I took off the wig.

“Cover your head!” she’d insist, and I would, feeling frustrated and hurt. When it became clear that wigs simply were not for me either physically or emotionally she pursed her lips and said: “Well then start wearing hats.”

“Sister-mine,” I retorted, “if you want me to wear hats, you’d better get busy and make them.”

Darned if she didn’t get several crocheted hat patterns and do just that! Each new hat was an experiment in style and color and materials. Each one was better than the one before. Each one got jazzed up with broaches and flowers and buttons and doo-dahs. They are fun and stylish and sassy. We’ve found I’m happiest with a fedora that has wire in the rim so I can shape it to my whim of the day. A fedora suits my last-of-the-red-hot-mama’s-despite-being-58-and-fat swagger.

The day Diane came to accept me bald was the day I took off my hat to mop the pooling sweat and she saw how wet the paper towel was.

“I can’t do this anymore, Diane. I can’t be this uncomfortable to protect you from your distaste.”

She looked stunned. Turns out, it wasn’t distaste – it was both fear and her sense of propriety. If Diane didn’t see the baldness she wouldn’t have see the difference in me. She wouldn’t have to cope with something being wrong or worry.

My sister has been a reserved and private person, where I have always been outgoing and in-your-face-Snoopy-happy-dance effervescent. When we went places together and my head was covered, she didn’t have to cope with as many stares or potential questions and she was more comfortable.

Somewhere along the line we both realized I can’t live my life from the premise of my sister’s comfort…or anyone else’s. She left her comfort zone behind and looked at me openly. Hugged me genuinely, touched the baby bottom softness of my scalp without flinching. She said she was okay with my baldness. She said it, but I knew she really meant it the day she told me if I wanted any more hats I’d have to learn how to make them myself.

Hat’s on…and off…to you Diane! I love you too, all the way to the moon and back.

Once again my big sister has decided in favor of letting me live.

My Brother’s Socks.

My brother David died suddenly of a massive heart attack three years ago. He was 62. I miss him every day. Despite the fact that I was his kid sister and a royal pain in his rear when we were growing up, David loved me and, in our later years, shared a number of things he admired about me. Courage and tenacity were at the top of his list.

When I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and it looked like I might only have a few months to live, David was ready to scoop me up and whisk me off on an Alaskan cruise. He knew watching the whales frolicking in the cold waters next to calving glaciers was one of my life goals, and he didn’t want me to miss it. Had it been necessary, David would have sold everything he owned to make sure I got there. And he would have made sure our family was together to share the experience. He was generous that way.

It turned out that my cancer was contained and I got out without having to have either radiation or chemo. I lived. He died. David never saw me bald.

I lost my hair two years after David’s death from alopecia not cancer. But I know my brother would have supported my decision to go boldly bald – he might even have shaved his head in camaraderie. He was quirky that way.

David’s belief in my courage and strength was a powerful confidence builder. When I didn’t feel brave, when weakness washed over me, he would remind me of past obstacles overcome, of forward steps taken. He was supportive that way.

When I was dealing with the emotional trauma of losing my entire body hair I missed my brother’s encouragement. I missed his presence. I missed the contact. One day I was acutely feeling the pain of work-world displeasure over my unwillingness to wear a wig. I wanted one of my brother’s enveloping hugs.

Suddenly I remembered a container of clothing his widow had given my husband. I ran to the basement and opened the bin…undershirts, underwear and socks. I took off my shoes and socks and slipped on a pair of his black crew socks. They were too long. I scooched them up and wiggled my toes. I could feel him laughing inside my head: Way to go Pamèlli, I knew you’d figure it out.

When I need a reminder that although being bald has changed my life, it hasn’t changed who I am…when I need a reminder that I have courage and strength to not only live bald boldly, but to use that baldness to shore up and encourage others, I smile and pull on a pair of my brother’s socks.

Wiggy Hugs


It is said we need 4 hugs per day for survival, 8 per day for maintenance and 12 hugs per day for growth.

I love hugs. I love giving them and receiving them. I love hugs as the expression of caring and connection. I love them as reassurance and encouragement. I love hugs as greetings and goodbyes, as the absorptive tissues of sorrow and the exclamation points of joy and excitement.

But when I lost my hair and donned a wig my hugs turned wiggy too. ‘Wiggy’, has two meanings. The slang term means: excited, eccentric, crazy. The rarer usage of wiggy is: pompously formal.

When I wore that wig, hugs became crazy and took on the degree of concentration required to navigate an obstacle course. Was the person I was hugging wearing glasses or anything on their ears that might get caught in the fibers of my wig? Did their clothing – hats, collars, pose any threat? What danger lay in wait from a benign piece of jewelry? Was my overheated head dripping sweat?

If someone came up behind me while I was sitting in a chair, looking up and back over my shoulder to see who it was pushed the wig up and formed a large mound on top of my head. It looked as though I’d magically transformed the wig into the teased bubble style of the ‘60s. Worse yet, it would start to slip off sideways and I’d smack the top of my head to catch the fall and ram it back into place.

I became hypervigilantly protective of my movements. My hugs became stiff and formal. It was a Really Bad Case of Wiggy Hugs. People asked: “What’s happened to you? Are you alright?”

I worked at a retirement home and worried that a bald head might be offensive or stressful to the residents.

“No,” I finally wailed. “I’m not alright. I’ve lost my hair and I’m wearing a wig and the stupid thing gets caught on everything and drags around sideways on my head. I constantly have to check if it’s on straight and I’m getting very hug deprived and crabby - it’s driving me crazy.”

After a moment of startled silence, one resident shuffled up to me with her walker and whispered in my ear: “Then take the darn thing off!” She was hard of hearing and didn’t realize her whisper was quite loud. I looked around. The rest of the women were sagely nodding their heads in agreement.

Isn’t it something how the people we are so worried about offending are the most often the very ones who’d rather have real hugs than fake hair?

Why be boldly bald? There are a lot of good reasons I can think of; but this morning I was confronted with a reason I’d never even considered.

I came downstairs, to hear my husband, whom I fondly call my little Greek, talking on the phone to our niece. Stella lives with her family and the rest of my husband’s relatives just outside of Athens, Greece, on top of an ancient mountain worn smooth by time that overlooks the Aegean Sea. I could picture her talking as she sat on the garden swing under the olive trees because my husband and I lived next door to her for 10 years.

Mike (my little Greek) was asking if she had gotten over the shock of seeing the bald picture album I’d put up on Facebook. Stella’s mother recently died of cancer and Mike was concerned my baldness might have been difficult for her to look at.

No, not at all was her reply. In fact, she was very impressed with the quality and the storyboard feel of the series of pictures interwoven with my comments. (If I find a way to add photo albums to this blog, I’ll transfer them here). But more so, she continued, she was impressed with my confidence and that soul-deep smile she remembered from the years we lived in Greece.

Mike had to leave for work, so I got to talk with Stella too. She was proud of me, she said, and thought what I am trying to do to promote comfort with women’s baldness is more important than I could imagine.

“It’s not just about the bald women themselves, Thea (Auntie), it is about the rest of us who struggle with things in our own life. It is about the young people who worry if they are a few pounds overweight or have a blemish or something which leaves them feeling self conscious and wanting to withdraw and hide.”

“Young people,” she continued, “need positive role models to deal with life’s difficulties with courage and grace. You, Thea, are such a role model. You do not let the difficulty of having no hair diminish you in any way.’

I was flattered by such a compliment from a woman I love and admire. I was also taken aback. Stella is right. Our baldness is about more than just us. It is about our families and our friends and our jobs and our beauty addicted society. It is also about our young girls and boys.

Our baldness, whether present for a season or a lifetime is an opportunity for us to say we are more than our hair. Our beauty is deeper, more enduring, more coupled to our spirit and our character than to our hairline. It is an opportunity to declare our strength goes beyond the obscurity of blending in with everyone else.

We can be different and hold on to ourselves proudly and with integrity. We can be role models, teachers and advocates. We can be light houses of empathy and understanding for those newly bald…for their families and for their friends and their employers and for our society. We can be beacons of strength and purpose to the young women following in our footsteps.

Not every woman who is bald gets to a point of complete comfort and personal freedom. There is no judgment here – only excitement for a possibility that bald women working individually and collectively can have a much greater impact for good than we ever imagined.