Mother

As she shaved her daughter’s head her eyes were glassy.

She kissed the top of her head where the clippers had just recently buzzed and gave a simple, “Shhhhh.”

Mother’s quiet confidence that everything will be okay. It is in God’s hands.

The cancer wouldn’t take her daughter like it had her husband.

As she moved the clippers back and forth she just stared in the mirror at her daughter. Her daughter hiccupped between the tears sitting in the plastic patio chair they’d brought inside. Each time mother would lean down, give her a kiss on the head and whisper, “Shhhh….todo está bien.”

She finished the last bit of fuzz on her daughter’s scalp and without pause took the clippers to her own head. Her daughter would not fight this fight alone.

They both quietly sobbed. Mother’s hand on her daughter’s shoulder as they stared at each other in the mirror as the clippers swiped away row after row of Mother’s silver hair.

Mother moved her arm and wrapped it around daughter’s neck and chest and hugged her through the tears. Twenty two years ago daughter’s entire body fit into that crook in her arm, now just her shaved head rested on her inner elbow.

Mother finished with the clippers and daughter got up to inspect her work. They both faced the mirror, side by side, locked on each other’s glassy eyes. Both stared at visions of a hopeful future. Mother wanted to see daughter grow up. Daughter wanted to live to be Mother’s age.

Their hands overlapped on the bathroom countertop that was covered in clumps of hair and they nodded. Mother’s quiet confidence spreading; both whispered (unsure if to themselves or to the other), “Todo está bien…todo está bien.”