The Haircut

“Lori, you sure you know what you’re doing?” my husband asked from his wheelchair. He looked concerned as I bluffed, “Of course! I’ve done this lots of times.” The confidence in my voice belied my nervousness as I held the comb and scissors in my hands.

It’d been two months since our head-on collision which had shattered his left ankle, putting him through two surgeries and 14 days in the hospital. I had received less severe injuries, which allowed me to care for him, including now, by trimming his hair.

I took a deep breath and began to cut. His hair had grown well below his neckline and over his eyes. With the first snip, my hands shook, yet I blustered on.

It seemed so easy when my hairdresser did this, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get his sides even. Snip, snip, snip. I cut more and more of his hair until finally it looked like someone had placed a salad bowl over the top of his head and just cut around it.

I sighed when I finished and hoped he wouldn’t be too angry when he saw the mess I had made. But, instead of angry words, as he looked in the mirror analyzing the destruction, he simply smiled and said, “Thank you. It will be just fine.”