Sharing Our Story

When my daughter set out on this adventure of raising money for St. Jude so that she could possibly shave her head, I agreed to shaving my own if she reached $1,000. It's not that I really wanted to shave my head or anything, but I wanted to be that mom.  

That mom that supports her child's amazingness.  
That mom that knows that hair is just hair and teaches her child to look at the beauty within instead of the beauty on outside.  
That mom who follows through on promises and keeps her word.
That mom who isn't afraid.

But I was afraid. I was afraid of how people would perceive me.

Would they think I lost my hair from chemo treatments like my mother and so many others do?
Would they think I'm living "alternatively" and rebelling against societal norms?
Would they judge me and think I'm a bad mother because I shaved my head and I let my 10 year old daughter shave hers too?
Would they think I look like a man?

What I have found has been the confidence to tell our story. It's become much bigger than being that mom. It's even bigger than the fundraising that my daughter has done for a wonderful organization.

It's about facing the world with nothing to hide behind.
It's about talking about that dirty word cancer and how it affects so many lives.
It's about believing in the greater good in our children and their future.
It's about celebrating who we are as individuals and living an authentic life.
It's about having courage and confidence when you worry about what they might think.

And they're all things I've struggled with over the years. My adventure into baldness has brought about a small change in myself. Instead of being afraid when people stare, I smile. When people say hi or mention "rocking the bald look," I talking freely and openly about why we did it. I share our story.

I've been documenting our lives since my daughter started kindergarten 5 years ago through another blog. It's another aspect of sharing our story. Writing in this blog shares our story, too. Everyone has a story or even volumes of books that would outnumber an Encyclopedia about their lives.

The truth is that this adventure into shaving my head came after one chapter of my life story has ended. Another relationship gone wrong. And I've taken it hard. At times, I've felt like the story of my life would end right there, no other pages to be written because it was just too sad to think about a life without him in it. I was again afraid.

But the truth is, most of the pages of our stories remain unwritten. And even if they are written they are often left untold to anyone. So I'm going to continue to tell our story because we have so much to tell and share with the world. As I venture on in life and move forward from that last chapter, I start this chapter with a clean slate. Hair will regrow and hearts will heal.

- Kathy