Mom and I were having coffee the other morning and she said “I can’t take it anymore” I said “what?”  She said "my hair is all over my pillow, and my sheets, and look it’s coming out in clumps." 

I asked her if she would consider getting her head shaved.  She thought for a time and then
after a quiet moment of thought, she agreed.  I rearranged my schedule, and off we went. 
We sat among four men, in a strange shop, oddly enough around the corner from our home, and got many looks.  There was no sign in sheet and to me no seemingly order in who was next as the two men working behind the barber chairs rarely looked up.  The shop offered a calmness that I felt along with quiet chatter that the barbers and the customers in the chairs were having. 

After our long wait for a barber shop chair we were next.  I helped Mom up, and with her frail and weakened body, we both walked a few steps to the chair.  The barber a small man with the large scissors, who seemed taller than her was, and with a large smile, greeted us, and asked what we wanted.  Mom took her skull cap off, along with it came the clumps of hair, and we both said, "A shaved head". 
"I have done this before", he said, and then asked us "what number did we wanted?"  Well I have very long hair and mom, has very little hair and to both us this was a strange question.  He explained, we agreed on a number and well... the buzzing started. 
Well as I stood by her side, I could feel the tears in my eyes, the heaviness in my heart, and a lump in my throat, and I looked at her, with the fear on her face, and with a loud, good for you from one of the men waiting, the buzzing and shedding began.

The razor was quick to shear off what was left of the silver and white hair on Mom's head. 

In a matter of 2 minutes, it was done, and as she looked in the mirror after putting her glasses back on, the four men waiting, looked up from their readings, and gave her the "nod".  The nod of love, the nod of fear, and the nod of knowing that it could be one of their loved ones sitting in that chair.  The shop was still and quiet and filled with Love and Hope. 

Now the best part of this day, was I went to pay for the "cut" and the Barber, the now a larger than life man, with the small scissors still in hand, refused to take my money. 

As the flood gates of my tears opened, and I could not contain myself any longer from all the emotions, I could only say "thank you from the bottom of my heart".  I shook his hand, and asked again, and he only asked for us to return when her treatment was over, and she needed a trim.

That my friends, is Love working.  That is taking control of a situation and making it good.  That is offering a kind gesture, giving hope, and showing by actions that Goodness is out there. 

Thank you for allowing me a venue to share the innate goodness of a stranger, who made a hard decision easy to wear.