I love my hair… I’ve grown it for years, avoiding scissors and razors for as long as I could. I perm it once every 10-12 weeks, I color it; add streaks to it whenever I can. I wrap it, put it in curlers, and style it with care every day. I love brushing it, combing it… I spend hours drying it, conditioning it… and the money I put into it, the time it takes…
But today, I’m pledging to make a change, a change that’ll change my whole life.
I have a mother, a sister, aunts, female cousins, friends, colleagues, strangers in my life, women born with two breasts who are at risk because we still haven’t found a cure for a ravaging disease that could change their body and spirit forever. In a world where a woman’s value is still measured by her looks and measurements, where she can lose one or both breasts to a disease, even worse, she can also lose her hair to treatments with painful side effects, what can I do?
I can ask you to forego a cafeteria coffee for a week or so… I can ask you to bring a lunch in to work once or twice, and give as little or as much as you want. And I’m not just asking you to give me money… I’m also offering something in return: my head of hair, newly colored and permed. I’ll go bald for a while. It’s very little but if you’re willing to give one tiny dollar to see me bald, it’s all worth it.
But here’s the catch. Your dollar is great… but get your friends’ dollars too because if I only collect $1,999.99, I keep my hair, and I’ll even add extensions to it. And if you get me $2,000.00 to give for Breast Cancer Research, I’m going to suck it up and go balder than Kojak, Vin Diesel, Eric Giroux and Dan Fosse!
Come on… wouldn’t you like to see my chocolate scalp?
This is the before…
And this is the after…
