Becky
I did it in the bathroom that night, after Micah had fallen asleep, because I didn't want an audience for the part where my hands might shake too much to finish what I'd started. I'd bought clippers earlier that day, the same kind Micah's nurse had recommended, sitting in their box on the counter for hours while I worked up the nerve.
My hair had never been anything remarkable, brown and a little wavy, the kind of hair I usually just pulled back and forgot about in the chaos of raising a kid alone. But looking at myself in the mirror that night, running my fingers through it one last time, I felt an unexpected wave of grief for it anyway, some small, foolish part of me mourning a piece of myself I hadn't realized I was attached to until the moment I was about to lose it on purpose.
