A few weeks back I received an email titled, Be Bold, Be Bald! In it, a young woman living with Stage IV cancer declared her intent to join this cancer awareness campaign, slated for October 17th, by wearing a bald cap. The question she posed: "Who is in with me? It takes a lot of gumption to commit to going bald for a day. Yes, you will look a little funny wearing a bald cap. Yes, strangers might confront you. And YES, that is the point."
October 17th - my Dad's birthday. (Kenneth Albert Pruett, October 17, 1936 - October 3, 2001.) Yes, a perfect way to pay tribute to him and those living with cancer or whose days were ended by it.
I didn't know that this same week would bring news of a dear college friend being admitted to hospice (liver cancer). And that another beloved would suffer a bleak week of setbacks (ovarian cancer). Or that a 29 year-old named Brittany Maynard, who moved to Oregon to avail herself of our Death with Dignity law, would end up on the cover of People magazine (glioblastoma, same as my Dad).
October 17th - my Dad's birthday. (Kenneth Albert Pruett, October 17, 1936 - October 3, 2001.) Yes, a perfect way to pay tribute to him and those living with cancer or whose days were ended by it.
I didn't know that this same week would bring news of a dear college friend being admitted to hospice (liver cancer). And that another beloved would suffer a bleak week of setbacks (ovarian cancer). Or that a 29 year-old named Brittany Maynard, who moved to Oregon to avail herself of our Death with Dignity law, would end up on the cover of People magazine (glioblastoma, same as my Dad).
I also didn't realize how many names would find their way onto my tribute cap. I planned one side In Memory of those who had died; one side In Honor and Support of those living with cancer. Their names brought up other names: those whose deaths came in other forms, those whose suffering is undiagnosed.
When it came to wearing the cap, no strangers confronted me. As I met with a client, worked out at the gym, shopped for groceries, picked up a latte, and hit another shop or two, what I got more than anything were averted eyes. It reminded me of when I held up a large protest sign about my friend Marcy being waitlisted for chemo. The words referring to Marcy were small and my sense was that most passersby thought it was I who was being denied treatment. For every sympathetic smile there were perhaps five who quickly looked away.
When it came to wearing the cap, no strangers confronted me. As I met with a client, worked out at the gym, shopped for groceries, picked up a latte, and hit another shop or two, what I got more than anything were averted eyes. It reminded me of when I held up a large protest sign about my friend Marcy being waitlisted for chemo. The words referring to Marcy were small and my sense was that most passersby thought it was I who was being denied treatment. For every sympathetic smile there were perhaps five who quickly looked away.
When I discussed my experience at a potluck that night (still "bald"), one person wondered whether the lack of comment coming my way was the blase response of Portlanders used to many daily doses of weirdness. Perhaps. But for many, I suspect, their silence was a way of saying, 'I don't know what to say."
I've had many, many moments of muteness myself. Sometimes months of muteness - connecting, for example, when my college friend was diagnosed and then again when she entered hospice, but nothing in between. It can be hard to carve out space in a busy life for communication that requires real presence. It can be hard to find words in a language oriented entirely towards fixing things.
We are divided, for the most part, into those who live in Cancer World (or the world of another serious illness) and those who don't. Those of us on the outside may visit occasionally - going "bald" for a day, waiting for our own diagnostic results only to return to the land of the Worried Well. I knew that my bald cap was nowhere near an approximation of what I would experience if chemo had actually taken my hair, my eyelashes, my eyebrows; if I couldn't reverse it all with a simple costume change.
Whether I raised awareness about cancer among those I encountered or not, here's what being bald for a day did. It opened a door in my heart between the worlds of the living and the dead, the worlds of the ill and the well. As I took the time to call up the names, inscribe them on my cap, see the names, touch the names, I honored them and honored my growing capacity for remembrance and connection.
And a I had a few great conversations. The Trader Joe's checkout clerk told me her story, and her son's. Here's to the boldness that might invite such a connection, even without such a bald provocation.
I've had many, many moments of muteness myself. Sometimes months of muteness - connecting, for example, when my college friend was diagnosed and then again when she entered hospice, but nothing in between. It can be hard to carve out space in a busy life for communication that requires real presence. It can be hard to find words in a language oriented entirely towards fixing things.
We are divided, for the most part, into those who live in Cancer World (or the world of another serious illness) and those who don't. Those of us on the outside may visit occasionally - going "bald" for a day, waiting for our own diagnostic results only to return to the land of the Worried Well. I knew that my bald cap was nowhere near an approximation of what I would experience if chemo had actually taken my hair, my eyelashes, my eyebrows; if I couldn't reverse it all with a simple costume change.
Whether I raised awareness about cancer among those I encountered or not, here's what being bald for a day did. It opened a door in my heart between the worlds of the living and the dead, the worlds of the ill and the well. As I took the time to call up the names, inscribe them on my cap, see the names, touch the names, I honored them and honored my growing capacity for remembrance and connection.
And a I had a few great conversations. The Trader Joe's checkout clerk told me her story, and her son's. Here's to the boldness that might invite such a connection, even without such a bald provocation.
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