Birthday Gift

My mother tells the story that when I was 15 and my brother Matt was 9, she came up the stairs to find him sitting on the floor in the hallway with our cat in his lap. He was using a hairbrush on her fur, to her purring delight.

"Matt! You shouldn't use your brush on the cat!" Mom admonished.

"It's not my hairbrush," he said, smiling serenely while continuing to stroke the cat. "It's Courtney's."

My brother and I had our share of knock-down drag-out fights as kids. As a toddler, he would take hold of giant fistfuls of my hair and pull as hard as he could. He teased me about the ill-advised perm I received at the age of 13. I retaliated by making fun of him when he had to shave his head for the swim team in high school, and took perverse delight in pointing out that it never grew back quite the same.

But now I am glad for his head- shaving expertise (although he later grew a ponytail in high school, he has been shaving it on and off since college). With all of you as my witnesses, I am giving Matt the gift I think he secretly always wanted as a kid for his birthday (albeit one day late):

When it comes time, about three weeks into my chemotherapy, Matt, you get an all-expenses paid trip to New York to shave my head. I'll even let you take pictures. Happy birthday to my big-hearted, bald-headed baby brother.