“Nice Haircut!”
I’ve heard the comment for over 20 years. My hair style used to matter, just as the reflection in the mirror did. Now I rely on the faces of others to tell me if I missed a spot while shaving my own.
Back in ’99 we called it “Boat School.” You found a place in or around Port Townsend and holed up for 9 months, then showed up for 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, and learned 1 thing: how to convince a tree to be a boat. Squirreled away in a pile of paperwork there is a college degree proving that I did it, but I very nearly didn’t, because of that awful day, and that tap on my shoulder, and the voice shouting over the roar of the bandsaw that there was a call on hold in the office.
It was my best and oldest friend who never cries…
His son’s lab report was back and Michael, little Michael, little everything to everyone Michael…
… the next 3 years were hell, the worst spent with Michael in his mother’s arms – an exhausted woman – rocking him on the hospital bed as he screamed in pain, but there could be no more morphine, or his 6-year-old lungs would simply shut down.
I remember back when we all looked like Michael, with our heads shaved, so that a sick child would not feel so utterly different.,
Now I wear a uniform.
Just yesterday I stopped by the ice cream parlor on the way to the ferry terminal. A brown-faced, wide-eyed boy stared at me in line. He had a bag of gummy worms that might not survive the trip to the counter.
I smiled.
His father didn’t.
I suppose I would look less like the enemy if I let my hair grow out.
But Michael is still dead.