John Gorka "I Saw A Stranger With Your Hair"

I was at Mom's house, a week or two after Dad's birthday dinner. I saw the package on her kitchen table addressed to Locks Of Love, and at first, it didn't phase me.

My sister Julie had quietly done this once or twice before. She'd grown her hair long, just like Mom's was in the 70s, and then she'd cut it off and donated the hair to Locks Of Love, which uses the hair to make hairpieces for kids who've lost their hair.


My sister Julie had come to Dad's birthday party a few days prior, with a new, short, haircut.

We had all kind of marveled at her. "You look like Mom, when she got married."


Mom had hair above her shoulders, in a very Jackie O kind of way, when she got married. But through her first years of being a Mom, she let it grow, and grow, and grow, until it reached Crystal Gayle proportions, stretching down to her rear end. It was a source of pride for her, and in iconic image of my Mom for anyone who ever knew her.

By the time we three kids were all in school, and Mom had regained a little of her life back, she hit that point that I think every mother hits---she wanted to cut it all off and get some kind of stylish haircut.

I think we all recognize the parental attempt to be stylish, doing exactly the opposite. Everybody knows the "Mom haircut."

No matter to Mom. She braided the 20+ inch tresses one last time, went to her stylist, and had the whole thing lopped off in one big chunk. She put it in an envelope and stored it, and the memories of her young Mom years, in the closet.


My sisters grew their hair long, too. Oh sure, there were attempts at perms and such, but most of the time they played to their strengths and let it grow.

So it was a blow to Amy to lose her hair.

Amy had to go through chemotherapy to treat three brain tumors that made their presence known at age 25. Her long thick hair came off in clumps.

And though we all thought she looked really, really cute in short hair, she kept a pre-cancer picture of her sporting long, long hair, on the refrigerator during that whole first round of treatment, hoping there would be a day her hair came back.

Her hair was never the same. But the cancer did come back.

Over the next several years, a fourth, and then a fifth tumor arrived, each bringing with it another round of chemotherapy.

She wore hats. She was too proud to wear a wig. "Somebody else's hair? That's gross."

When the cancer kept coming back, in ascending order of upset, she was upset that she might die, she was more upset that she was going to have to have more treatment, and she was most upset that she was simply never going to have her hair back.

When she passed away last year, I thought we should have buried her in her ski hat.


Back to the beginning of this story . . .

I was at Mom's house, a week or two after Dad's birthday dinner. I saw the package on her kitchen table addressed to Locks Of Love, and at first, it didn't phase me.

"Did Julie give you her hair, to send to Locks Of Love?"

Mom said "No, Julie sent her hair last week. That package has my hair."

Seeing Julie's haircut had sent Mom to the phone, and then the closet.

Though it had been braided and in an envelope for nearly 30 years, Mom's hair hadn't degraded a bit (most hair holds up pretty well over time), and the Locks Of Love people said they would be happy to accept it.

I know John Gorka's song is about a lost romance, but now when I hear it, I think about the stranger wearing my sister's hair, or my Mom's hair, a stranger who is not Amy.