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**** I actually wrote this post last November. November 16 to be exact. After watching Robin Roberts discuss her battle with cancer on air, airing video of having her head shaved, modeling during Fashion Week. Yesterday, Robin took off her wig. She no longer intends to wear a wig. She is as she has always been - a beautiful woman with an even more beautiful spirit. What a picture of courage and grace.

You can watch the on-air clip here:
Robin Roberts Au Naturale

YESTERDAY….

Robin Roberts shared more of her story regarding her battle against cancer. Yesterday she aired the video of having her head shaved. Many people who have cancer and go through chemotherapy lose their hair. Robin says other survivors told her to be proactive, to be preemptive…to cut her hair BEFORE it started falling out. She didn’t. She waited. And so, after discovering that it was coming out when touched, she sat down in a chair, had them put the cape around her and let her stylist shave her head. She told the story about wearing a wig on air so that the viewers aren’t distracted from the story, not because she wants to hide or deny the truth of her story. She shared pictures of herself without the wig…

That story moved me to tears.

Oddly enough, just the day before, I wrote a poem called “His Hands” that made reference to a woman losing her hair…and her breasts…to cancer. (I’m not sure if the folks who read it made that connection since I never “named” cancer as the villain in that piece).

I don’t know why I wrote it. I carried that piece around with me all day yesterday…mentally, emotionally. I couldn’t shake it. I don’t know why.

Do I know folk who’ve battled cancer? Yes.

My mom lost her best friend to cancer years ago. I don’t remember her being sick - I remember them telling us she had cancer, the next thing I remember she was in the hospital and then….

I know a group of ladies, about 5-6 of them who worked together for years. Of the 5-6 of them, all but one has battled some form of cancer - for most of them it was breast cancer. Of the 5-6 of them, only two are still with us.

I know males who are battling some form of cancer too.

I don’t know why that poem tugged at my conscious, waiting to be birthed on paper. All I know is, I wrote it two yesterdays ago. One yesterday ago, I watched Robin Roberts’ story of hair loss. I pulled out that poem, read it again, ran my hands through my head full of 2-strand twists, and uttered a
prayer through my own tears.

As people of color - especially women - we spent years talking about “good hair” vs. “bad hair”. What a waste of time and energy. “Good hair” is HEALTHY hair. Period. End of story. Permed. Natural. Texlaxed.

So many of us have yet to make peace with whatever kind of hair we have. We frown on folks who wear their hair natural, we talk about folks who deal with the “creamy crack”. In the end, what does it really matter?

“I am not my hair. I am not my skin. I’m am the soul that lives within.”

Love yourself - all of you. Embrace all that you are. Be bold. Be beautiful. BE.

Live from your soul,
~ J ~