Wednesday, January 28, 2009

not fade away

As my wife's hair grows back from the chemo treatments, she's become extremely insecure about her appearance. She wears hats or a wig, but her actual hair isn't much longer than mine. She refuses to have it styled or trimmed as she's trying to grow it out to pre-cancer lengths. And I think it's really getting her down.
This was exacerbated the other day when I told her that she looked like Michael Richards.

That's pretty mean. Even for me. So I softened the blow by telling her instead that she looked more like a young Bob Dylan. That didn't go over well idea either. So we settled on "Teenaged Jewish Boy Preparing for his Bah Mitzvah". Which is just about right.

So although she's goyim, she keeps kvetching about her hairstyle, which I keep telling her I don't mind because I'm strangely attracted to teenaged Jewish boys (not true). But that doesn't keep her from calling me a schmuck and a nudnik and we end up getting into a big shemozzle over it.
Oy vey.
Call me meshuggah, but I seem to remember vowing to love her through sickness and health. Now I take that also to mean through looking-like-a-Jewish-teen and health, but no amount of convincing will do. We joke about it, but I know how important it is for a woman to take pride in her appearance.
I apologize if this comes across as schmaltz, but it's not bubkes, I promise.
I come home every night and I see my beautiful wife. I see her regardless if she's wearing a bandana or a wig or a ballcap or sporting her Kramer haircut. She's still my wife.
I don't care if she puts on her glasses and looks just like Buddy Holly.


I see my wife and am attracted to her as much as if she had hair down to her knees.
Soon enough - maybe it'll be a few months or another year - her hair will grow back and she'll be back to looking like the girl I married. But that doesn't matter to me though.
One day we'll both lose our looks for good. One day she'll be shriveled and old and saggy. She'll shuffle around with rheumy eyes and false teeth. Her hair will be thin or gone and liver spots will mark her hands.
And I'll still see my beautiful wife.
Appearance is fleeting.
In time, looks fade away.
But in the words of Buddy Holly - who died 50 years ago today - my love will not.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

The Tortfeezor is back!

Your loving mother-in-law