As a kid, my mom always cut my hair short, making me look like a boy. I dreamed of braids and waist-long locks, envied girls with flowing hair and protested every trim. Mom died when I was 19, and only then I learned she kept cutting it because I’d had a mild form of alopecia as a toddler, and she’d worried it would come back if my hair grew too heavy.
The doctor had told her I might outgrow it, or it might return at random. It was her way of protecting me, though I never knew. She carried that worry on her own, cutting my hair and letting me believe she was just being controlling. In reality, she was terrified of me losing it all again and facing teasing I wouldn’t know how to handle.
The truth hit me like a brick. All those years of resentment. The fights. The silent dinners after salon appointments. I’d always believed she didn’t want me to be “too feminine.” It never occurred to me that she was scared. I felt this deep ache knowing she held that burden alone.
So, after the funeral, I stopped cutting my hair. It felt symbolic, like claiming something for both of us. I imagined what she would say seeing me brush it, twist it, finally braid it. Probably something sarcastic like, “You’ll spend more on conditioner than groceries,” but deep down, I think she’d smile.
Years passed, and I kept growing it. Through college, through my first real job, through my first heartbreak. That hair became my timeline. It brushed my shoulders the year I graduated, reached mid-back when I moved cities, and nearly touched my waist by the time I turned 26. I took care of it like it was a piece of her I was finally allowed to have.
People complimented it all the time—strangers, coworkers, even my grumpy landlord. I never told them why I kept it long. It felt too personal, like the story was stitched into each strand. It was mine. Mine and Mom’s.
Then one morning, running late to work, I caught my hair in the car door. I laughed, because it was such a dumb thing. But by noon, my scalp was itchy. By dinner, I’d scratched a bald patch near my ear. I froze in the mirror. The panic was instant.
I thought maybe it was stress. I’d been overworking. I tried oils, serums, scalp massages, herbal teas, even cut sugar. But over the next two weeks, I lost more. A chunk the size of a quarter, then two. I found strands on my pillow, on my coat, in the drain. The fear my mom carried? I finally understood it.
I went to the same dermatologist she had taken me to as a child—he was retired, but his daughter now ran the practice. Dr. Lin. She examined me gently, calmly, told me it looked like a flare-up of alopecia areata. Could be temporary. Could be unpredictable.
I held it together until I got to my car. Then I bawled into the steering wheel like a child. Not just for the hair—but for all those years I’d been angry at Mom, when she was just trying to protect me. For the fear I could feel crawling back in. For the possibility that my braid—the one I’d grown in her memory—might disappear.
I wore scarves for a while. Hats. I dreaded washing my hair. Each rinse felt like betrayal. Like I was losing a part of her all over again.
My boyfriend at the time, Mark, tried to be supportive. But you know, sometimes support is loud when it needs to be quiet. “It’s just hair,” he said once, while we were brushing our teeth. “You’re still beautiful.” I nodded, but inside, I wanted to scream.
It wasn’t just hair. It was her.
Things with Mark fizzled shortly after. He wasn’t cruel, just… indifferent. When you’re grieving something intangible, like identity or memory, indifference feels like a punch in the throat. So I let him go.
I joined a support group—not in person, but online. A bunch of women who’d lost hair due to illness, grief, or just genetics. Some wore wigs. Some rocked bald heads like crowns. Some were still hiding under hoodies and silence. I lurked for weeks before I posted.
I typed: “My mom used to cut my hair short. I thought she didn’t want me to be pretty. Turns out she was scared I’d lose it all again. Now I am.”
The comments flooded in. Stories. Tears. Encouragement. Pictures. One woman, Hannah, sent me a private message with photos of her own patchy scalp and a big cheesy grin. “It grows back. Sometimes not where you want. Sometimes in ways you don’t expect. But you’re still you.”
It sounds silly, but that message helped. I stopped hiding so much. I bought a silk headscarf that felt more like style than disguise. I started drawing again, something I’d stopped doing when Mom passed. I felt her more when I sketched—her face in shadows, her laugh in lines.
One day, at the art supply store, I met a little girl with bright blue glasses and wild curly hair. Her mom was picking up brushes. The girl looked at my scarf and asked, “Are you a painter?” I smiled and said, “Trying to be.” She nodded, serious. “You look like one.”
I don’t know what it was—maybe just a child’s brutal honesty—but I went home and looked at myself in the mirror differently. I didn’t see someone missing something anymore. I saw someone still here.
A few months later, my hair started growing back in tiny baby strands. Soft, fuzzy, stubborn. I ran my fingers through them one morning and laughed. It was uneven and wild—but it was mine. I thought about cutting it, trimming it neat, but I didn’t. Not yet. I liked the chaos.
I had a job interview that week at a local library that was launching a children’s art program. I brought a portfolio of my sketches, still unsure if they’d be “good enough.” The director was kind. She looked through my work slowly, then said, “Your lines tell stories.”
I got the job.
That program became my heartbeat. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, I ran workshops with kids who didn’t care if my hair was thin or hidden or gone. They cared if the glue was dry or if I remembered to bring glitter. One little girl, Isla, hugged me after class and whispered, “You draw like my mom used to.”
I asked where her mom was. She said, “In the sky.” My throat tightened. I nodded and said, “Mine too.”
We didn’t need to say more.
One morning, Isla came in with a plastic crown and said, “This is for you. My mom said everyone needs one when they’re sad.” I wore that thing the entire day.
Years passed like that. My hair never fully came back. Some spots filled in, others stayed smooth. I stopped tracking it. I’d moved on. Found a rhythm. Some days I wore it out, short and soft. Some days I covered it. I let it be what it was.
And then came a moment that took me full circle.
I was hosting a mother-daughter art day at the library. Glitter, clay, paint—all of it. Near the end, a woman approached me quietly. She looked nervous, holding a brown envelope. “You’re Mae, right? Mae Elwood?”
I blinked. “Yeah.”
She handed me the envelope. “Your mother… she used to come to my print shop every year before your birthday. She made custom cards for you. She always said she wanted to give them one day, when you were ready. After she passed, I kept them, just in case.”
My hands shook. I opened the envelope and pulled out years of birthday cards. Each one with a drawing of a little girl with long, flowing hair. Braided, curled, wild, loose. And notes.
“Maybe this year.”
“She wanted braids so badly. One day, I hope I can braid them myself.”
“Protecting her is hard when she doesn’t know it’s love.”
I sat down right there on the floor of the library and cried like a child.
It was like hearing her voice again. And in every card, there was love. Not the kind I understood as a teenager—but the kind that holds you even when you push it away.
That night, I went home and opened my sketchbook. I drew her. Not how she looked at the end, thin and tired. But how I remembered her best: in the kitchen, with a messy bun and a wooden spoon in her hand, music playing, laughter spilling out like sunlight.
I drew myself too, as a kid. Standing next to her. In a red dress with long braids.
That sketch now hangs in my studio.
You know, I used to think healing was about going back to how things were. About regrowing, restoring, replacing. But I’ve learned it’s more about becoming—learning who you are without the things you lost, and still carrying their love with you.
I never got to have my hair braided by Mom. But in some strange, magical way, I think she did it anyway—with every snip, every worry, every hidden birthday card.
And I’ll carry that braid forever.
If this story touched you, share it with someone you love. You never know who’s carrying a memory in silence. Like and spread the message—love doesn’t always look the way we expect, but it’s always there.
