A Promise to Keep

Claire remembers the day her best friend, Elaine, noticed a lump in her breast while she was showering.  The next week seemed like a year before the doctor told Elaine that the biopsy confirmed the tumor was malignant.

Claire and Elaine began their solid friendship in high school when they we’re sorority sisters.  They confided their teenage dreams and traumas to each other and often double dated.  After college, they were in each other’s wedding parties.

Elaine was now married with two children, 8 and 5 years old.  Her doctor advised her to have a radical masectomy which would be followed by a few months of chemotherapy to make sure they eradicated any hidden cancer cells.  Thinking only of her family, Elaine followed the doctor’s advice.

After recovering from the masectomy, the chemo treatments took a toll on Elaine, both physically and mentally.  She was minus a breast and now her hair was falling out.  Claire often spent time consoling her while Elaine’s husband was at work.  Elaine showed Claire the ugly scar running across her flat chest.  Elaine’s husband accepted this disfiguration and was just anxious that his wife make a full recovery.

Elaine had trouble accepting her bald head even if it was only temporary.  A woman’s hair often defines her self image.  She could only afford a synthetic wig which really did look like a wig.

And now it was time for Claire’s appointment.  Her chestnut  colored  hair had always been shoulder length.  It was worthy of the many compliments she received on its rich sheen and silkiness.  What would she look like without long hair?  She had already begun to quiver.

Claire had made a secret promise to God, that if Elaine got through her ordeal, Claire would donate her long hair to “Locks of Love” which uses real hair to make wigs for cancer patients.  She was now outside of the hair salon.

Claire, Claire, it’s time.