“You’d look younger with a shorter cut.”
“Long hair is for young women.”
“Isn’t it a hassle to maintain at your age?”
I hear these comments often. I’m in my 60s, and my hair reaches down past my waist. It’s no longer the golden blonde it once was; now, it’s a soft, almost silver-white, like the first light of dawn. And no, I don’t cut it. It’s not about resisting change. It’s not about holding on to the past or trying to recapture a youth I’ve long since embraced the passing of.
It’s about him.
Most people don’t understand. They think I’ve just grown attached to something that’s become a part of me over the years. They assume it’s a simple matter of liking the way it looks. They don’t know the real reason.
Every morning, when I brush through the strands, I remember his fingers running through it. I can still feel the way his hand would slide through the silken strands, his touch warm and gentle. I’d close my eyes, and it felt like everything in the world was still right, still whole. The scent of his cologne, the soft hum of his voice—it was all there, in the way he touched me, in the way he made me feel. I remember how he’d laugh when the wind would catch my hair, and he’d call me his “wildflower.” He used to say my hair looked like something out of a dream, something rare and beautiful.
But then one day, he was gone. Just like that.
It wasn’t a slow departure, no long goodbyes or drawn-out moments of closure. Cancer doesn’t have the courtesy to respect time or give us the opportunity to prepare for loss. It took him from me in a matter of months. He was here, and then he wasn’t. The disease stole him in the cruelest way, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but his memory and a void that seemed far too vast for anyone to fill.
I remember standing beside his hospital bed, his hand limp in mine, feeling the weight of everything he could no longer hold. He was slipping away, and I was left to confront a future I couldn’t possibly imagine without him. In that moment, a decision was made—one I didn’t even need to think about. It wasn’t a choice in the typical sense. It was instinct. A promise I made to him and to myself. I would keep my hair long. I would hold on to this piece of myself, this part of him, until I was truly ready to say goodbye.
People say I should cut it. I hear it all the time, from friends and even strangers. They say it would be easier, that it’s impractical for someone my age. They offer their suggestions with concern, some more tactful than others. But none of them know the truth. They don’t know what it means to me, to hold on to something so small yet so significant. They don’t understand how every time I brush through my hair, I’m not just caring for it—I’m keeping a promise. I’m keeping him with me in the only way I know how.
When the wind catches my hair and it sweeps across my face, it’s like a whisper from the past. I remember the way he would look at me, eyes full of admiration, and the way he’d say that I was like a wildflower—untamed, free, and beautiful in the simplest of ways. In my hair, I can still feel his touch, and in every strand, there’s a memory that I’m not ready to part with.
No, I won’t cut it. Not yet. And maybe not ever.
When people tell me I should, I just smile. They don’t know the depth of the promise I made, the way this decision is woven into the fabric of my grief, my love, and my memories. They don’t know that cutting my hair would be cutting a piece of him out of my life.
And I’m not ready for that.
So I’ll keep it long. Not because I’m stubborn or because I don’t want to change. But because, for now, it’s the only way I know how to keep him close.
