And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. – Matthew 6:28
My mother had cancer and underwent chemotherapy, which caused her to lose all of her hair. Since my mother always hated her hair (too frizzy, too thin, and too red), we told her God was giving her a second chance, and that when it grew back in, it would be thick and straight and beautiful.
In the meantime, Mom went in search of the perfect wig. If there was a wig store within a 100-mile radius, we were there! After more than four weeks of constant shopping, she settled on a $500 wig. It was made of human hair, and had a cap like netting to help keep Mom’s head cool. It was straight, thick, and a beautiful shade of auburn.
One morning, Mom used her walker to get into the bathroom. She prepared to put on her new wig by placing a stocking cap over her very bald and smooth head. She then put on the wig and adjusted it. She became frustrated because she felt that the hairs were not lying straight, and she asked if I would “fix it”. I looked at the wig – a pageboy cut with bangs – and not a hair seemed out of place, which I told her.
“Can’t you see that the side and back just don’t seem to lay right? Here, you take the pick and fix it,” Mom said.
Rather than argue, I thought it easier to take the pick and go through the motions of combing her wig straight. Unfortunately, the pick caught the wig’s netting just right, and the wig flew off my mother’s smooth head, leaving the stocking cap in place. The two of us watched in horror as it flew through the air, seemingly in slow motion, heading right for the toilet bowl! With both hands on her walker, my mother kept exclaiming, “Oh, my! Oh, my!”
All the while, I kept thinking, “Where are we going to get the money to replace this $500 rat…I mean, wig?!”
Mom was between me and the bowl, and there was nothing we could do but watch as the wig hit the toilet seat, teetered for a moment, and then fell…onto the tile floor! We both looked into the mirror at each other and burst out laughing. We realized that physical beauty is fleeting, but seeing the humor in life is a gift from God.