Wigging Out!

Today I had the privilege of taking my aunt to be fitted for a wig to wear during her months of chemotherapy.  I say privilege, because her attitude astounds me. When I picked her up, she came out of her house, with a colorful scarf draped around her head in a fashion similar to that of middle eastern women.  She looked good, and was proud of her choice of scarf which she picked up at Walmart yesterday.  Her only stipulation to going wig shopping today was that she needed to be back in time to go FISHING! Apparently, she fishes every Monday night with one of her roommates, and loves it.  This in itself, cracked me up.  I never would have guessed that she would enjoy that activity.  I assured her we would be back in time, and off we went on our mission.

In the car she was super chatty, talking about losing her hair, but despite that she felt good physically.  She talked about her mom, and how her mom would probably give her a big hug right now, but she announced that she could wait until she saw her mom and dad again in heaven to get her hug.  Once we arrived at the shop, she unabashedly discarded her scarf and wandered around the shop looking at wigs.  My purpose, was to find her some hair that closely resembled her previous style, which had been the same as long as I can remember; short boy cut, with bangs.  Her hair had darkened to a deep brown over the years, so brunette seemed to be the right choice. Immediately, I gravitated toward dark short-haired wigs.  Suddenly, I heard her call from behind me, "I want this one" I turned around to see her pointing to a platinum blonde long-haired wig.  What the heck?!  Proceeding with caution, I said, "Are you sure? That hair is really long." She pondered it for a moment, stepped back, and then said, "No."  Phew.  Crisis averted! That is, until she wandered over to a shoulder length platinum blonde wig.  Sigh.  I grabbed it and put it in our try on pile.  Every wig I pulled out that resembled her former do, received a decided, "No. I don't like that."  Apparently, she was looking for a "new me" style, and secretly loathed her former hairstyle.  Okay.  I tried to roll with that.  We picked up some brunette wigs with heavy blonde highlights, that was the closest she would agree to her normal color. We also added several strawberry blonde wigs to the pile.  None were super short, nor did she like any with "pouf".  I worried internally that the family would chastise me for the frivolity, but ultimately I decided to bear any criticism.  It was her hair, and she should get what she wanted.  She was the one that had to endure all the hair loss, medicine, and trauma. Thankfully though, once she donned the platinum blonde wig she didn't like the color on her.  She was right, it didn't look good. But the other two colors in our pile were rather complimentary. She wouldn't budge from those, so we came down to style.  She finally chose a strawberry blonde wig slightly longer than chin length with side swept bangs.

It was stylish and flattering, just different.  It took some getting used to just because I hadn't been prepared to see such a change. However, it cannot be denied that she was beaming about her choice.  I teased that when her normal hair started to grow back that she might have to let it grow that length and have it colored to match her wig style.  She answered thoughtfully, "I just might do that." I dare anyone to say anything negative about her choice of wig, because I will happily pummel them. Doing this, brought her so much joy, she was due for some fun.  Bless her.  And it was good for me too.  Seeing her bravery and positive attitude, was humbling.  We had the rest of her hair shaved off, and she put the wig on her head and walked on out of that shop with her smile reaching ear to ear.