A Gift That Changed My Life

When I started chemotherapy I knew that I was going to have to prepare myself for my hair to fall out but I never thought that it would be as traumatic as it was. I am not sure what I was expecting but when it started to come out, it came out in big chunks. The first time I had noticed I was out with a friend on a hot night. My car didn't have air conditioning and I was sweating like crazy. I ran my hands through my hair to get it off my face and all of the hair that I had touched ended up in my hands. I wept uncontrolably.

I guess why it hurt so much was because I just wanted people to treat me like I was normal. I didn't want to be fussed over or pitied. I just wanted to be a normal kid and do normal things. I could hide my scars. I could put on a smile and hide my pain but I couldn't pretend that my hair wasn't falling out.

Realistic looking wigs aren't cheap. Especially ones with a youthful style. My mother brought me to the wig store to check out our options and there was one that that looked like my old hair. It had the same highlights and the same cut. I can't remember how much it was but I do remember that we went home without it because we needed to weigh our options. It was another expense, bills were starting to come in and this was not necessary to my physical health.

Sometime after that my father had one of his regular union meetings. By this time word of my diagnosis had spread through the union and my dad's friends decided that they needed to spring into action. The people that my dad has worked with over the years have incredible hearts and they always band together when times call for them. They are also huge supporters of the MDA and have multiple fundraisers throughout the year as well as a large food drive each year to collect food for the poor. My dad helps in some way with every single event.

Even though some of these people had never met me, they decided to pass a hat at their meeting before dad arrived. At the end of the night they gave my father an envelope with the entire amount of a new wig.

I was blown away by this! What an incredible act of kindness. How humbling. Why would they want to help me? I mean nothing to them at all. It really made my heart sing. They cared enough to want me to feel like me again. Now I could feel "normal".

When we started Alissa's Hope, that was the feeling that we were hoping to give back to someone. We wanted the money that we raised to go to someone who really needed a hand, needed a pick me up, needed an advocate. We wanted the money to go to someone that would be inspired by the fact that a stranger cared enough about them that they made an effort to make a difference in their life. We hoped that the good feeling that this act of kindness had given them would make them want to pass along that good feeling to the next person once their life was back in order.

The gift that my dad's friends gave me was so much more than money, or the wig itself. My dad's friends gave me hope. And that is what I really needed.