Today wasn’t just another fairy tale; it was a little more
than that. Today a princess just refused to let the dragon carry her away…..
Two months back a dear friend of mine, Babycakes (both of us
call each other by that name for the last five plus years since I have known her) was
diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a kind of cancer. The first thing she told
me after breaking the news of her sickness was, ‘it’s really not a big deal, stay off
of Google’. If that sounds fearless, read on.
She just started chemotherapy to ‘zap it out’ as she puts it,
and while it was not possible to prevent her hair from falling off, she wanted
to do it on her terms. She took it all off today in a celebratory event.
As I parked my car in one of the back roads near Kenneth
Square, and headed uphill to the venue, I walked through a sidewalk sandwiched
with flowers on both sides. When I reached the venue for the event, Flickerwood
Wine Cellars, she was there, dressed in a beautiful grey dress and a pinkish yarn-dyed
coat with the ultimate piece of chunky jewelry, looking like every bit the
celebrity in her own right.
Big hugs and a few fun pictures later, she took her seat on
a tall bar-stool and sipped a frozen Margarita as the hair dresser started
taking her hair off. Wait! It doesn’t end there – she did it in stages – this
time it was a fun Mohawk, and guess what, even though she wasn’t buying our
words ( especially the ‘you look like Justin Bieber’ compliment), she looked
even cooler….nah…Hotter!!!
She took a break and consoled someone who was getting
emotional, socialized a little more and took more pictures before taking it all
off in the next round. Her two young children were standing side by side,
trying to fight back tears through smiles and hugging each other intermittently.
Her mom was throwing compliments about how whether she liked it or not, she
looked great. I’ve always thought that she had the most vivaciously animated
face that I have seen, and taking the hair off only took it to an even higher
superlative by increasing focus on it.
I left soon after and as I walked downhill through the same
road, I couldn’t see the flowers anymore since it was dark. But I knew that
they were there, I could feel them. It was only a matter of the sun rising
again to see them. And the sun would definitely rise again
….and she will live happily ever after!
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