From balding to the big shave to the nude melon

December 24, 2014

Been simmering on this thought.

I really wanted Abbey to be ready, emotionally, before I got rid of what hair was left on my head.

She still didn’t want me to do it today — but my beautifully mature, kind and considerate 10-year-old realised how bad I was feeling with my hair coming out in clumps that she finally gave me the OK to get rid of it.

It was amazing how I went from thinking about the big shave every day for nearly three weeks to just waking up today knowing I would take the plunge.

It was empowering. I was choosing the final day of existence for my remaining locks.

To be honest I felt like an old man in denial who was going to have to work the “comb over” look — and I wasn’t prepared to let that happen.

Having strands touch my face like there was a bug on me sickened me. I had had enough of hanging onto something I was losing control over — so I gathered my beautiful family in the backyard and off we went.

The clippers were proudly supplied by my younger brother Mat who had 15 years earlier shaved our Mum’s head. We spoke about him doing the same for me but agreed Ross and the kids should be the ones to help me — it was a process we all needed to digest and the best way to do that was to do it together.

With clippers, ipads and iphones in place we set about giving me some power back.

Abbey and Jack couldn’t do any of the shaving – they filmed it and photographed it – somewhat begrudgingly but they knew what it meant to me to feel “free”.

This is how I looked this morning!

Pre-shave family pic

Then this happened

And now I’m a nude nut with a decent wardrobe full of new hats, scarves and of course a wig. And now I have to think about putting suncream on my head to cover the space in the back of my caps where my ponytail used to poke through!

While this will take some getting used to I keep going back to one thought – today is Christmas Eve and while I will wake up bald tomorrow, Sydney Siege victim Katrina Dawson’s children will wake up on Christmas morning without their mother! They are 8, 5 and 3 years of age.

I will have my children and they will have me — and we will celebrate another beautiful time of year together — hat and all!