Sweetness. Pure sweetness.
Do you SEE this face? For those who know, this is my sweet Asher.
He is the child God gave me in order to grow me. He tests my
patience daily. His strength is unmatched by normal 5 year olds. This
is not to say he is a difficult child, he is just a child who tends to think and
behave "outside the box." But this child has always had a sweet
heart and ever since he could talk he would say sweet things that make me catch
my breath.
Having a deployed spouse is hard...but I
can't help but think it is harder to have a deployed daddy. Skype is a
blessing, even with the frustrations of missed calls and dropped calls, delayed
voice, frozen screens...it is a blessing nonetheless because it allows us to
SEE him. And in that brief moment we FEEL him.
So, a couple of days ago when we got on
Skype the first thing we noticed was that the love of my life had no hair.
NO HAIR! So, when we inquired about the baldness, he said it was to
support a fellow firefighter going through cancer. Anyone who knows my
family would understand, this is a no brainer for us. Of course he shaved
his head. And he can ROCK a bald head, let me tell you.
Asher and I had a good discussion about
cancer and how the medicine can make a person's hair fall out. He brought
up Mr. Rob (too long for details here, a whole nother blog for sure) and
remembered that about the hair. He went and put on his Remember Rob bracelet
and came back. He asked why daddy shaved his head - and I told him that
when we care about people sometimes we do things to show that we care. So
daddy's bald head was a way to say to that guy, "Hey man, I care about
you."
And then came those sweet little words
that stopped me in my coffee making tracks. "Mom, I want to shave my
head too. Because I care about daddy, and I care about that guy."
And of course I said, "Ok." How else do you respond to
that? I mean, how do you say no to THAT? Sweetest sentiment ever, with zero hesitation. I asked,
"What if you don't like it?" He said..."I won't know until
I try it. And it'll grow back anyway."
So now a few words about this full head
of hair. When Asher was born, I noticed he was blessed with a nose made
for smelling. And flaring. And getting things stuck inside of.
Because you see, he simply had a rather large nose. So in order to
offset the largeness of the nose we have kept Asher's hair fairly long.
And he is pretty stinkin cute if I do say so myself. So, I was a
little nervous about how this would look...but I also knew he had pretty
well "grown into his nose" for the last couple of years. And
ta-da, I think he looks GREAT with a shaved head. I did it on a #4 and he
asked for me to go more and do it on a #2, crazy kid!
I think he is handsome with AND without hair, but I am most impressed with his BEAUTIFUL heart of love for others! I pray this comes as a sense of encouragement to the firefighter in Dover Delaware for whom this was done, and for those everywhere experiencing the effects of chemo. Feel free to share with someone you think may like to read it :-)
Deanna
