Baldness isn't all bad

                Part of me actually doesn’t mind being bald for a while.  I mean, it’s unattractive and all that, but it is also serving a useful purpose:  it is an immediate signal to everyone that I am sick and in a vulnerable place.  I am becoming used to a stream of strangers coming up to me and offering their support.  It is very nice.

                I just came home from Giant.  While I was in the checkout line, a woman came up to me, and asked me if I minded speaking to her, and if I were recently in cancer treatment.

                “Recently?”  I said.  “I’m smack in the middle of it.”

                So we had a good chat right there.  She is about a year and a half ahead of me.  She has glorious hair again.  She has had reconstructive surgery and is having a bit more.  We got to compare notes; the chemo is the worst part, she says.  (Everyone says that!)  This makes me happy because the surgery is sort of the part that scares me right now.  Nope, she says, you can get through the chemo, you can do anything.  She asks me my name and I know she will pray for me, and I will pray for her, and this means a great deal to me. I get a big hug.

                And at the gym the other day, a woman approached me at the lateral abs machine.  “I can’t help but noticing you are in treatment,” she says.  “How are you doing?”

                So we have a great chat.  I ask her what the worst part was for her.  “Chemo for sure,” she said. That’s what I want to hear.  She gives me a few hints, and a big hug, and says she will pray for me.

                And at the Methodist conference, I had to ask directions to a certain meeting from one of the stewards.  He says to me, “I can tell from your hairstyle that you need one of my hand-carved crosses.”

                And out of his pocket he pulls a wooden cross that he had made himself out of teak wood.  He had a couple of them.  He knew he would meet someone during the day who needed prayer and a handmade cross.  I got another big hug.

                So everywhere I go, I am followed by a sort of underground support network of people I have never met.  They lurk at Giant and at the gym and at the Marriott hotel in Baltimore.  Total strangers are praying for me.  I hope the cosmos returns their good will, with interest.  They are making me stronger.