My mother - at least, that's how I thought of her - had been dead two days. Two days of tears, flowers, hugs, I'm-sorrys, I-can't-even-imagine-how-hard-this-must-be-for-you, the works. People cared, but not in any way that mattered.

And me? I sat in bed alone, hour after hour. I couldn't bear to be coddled by the myriad of people who had loved her. I had loved her more. I knew that. Or, I thought that.

She had touched so many lives it was scary. Perhaps mine most of all. Curled up in bed, lights off, quilt up to my neck, I squeezed my eyes tight shut and tried not to think about her fingers in my hair. The way she used to play with it, called it princess hair. But as I prayed for sleep, death, anything, I could almost feel her cold fingers in my hair again, still there, like they'd never left. They should have soothed, like they always did when she was alive, but they scared me. I wrenched the quilt off my body with a sudden burst of energy and dashed to the bathroom. Hands trembling, I found the scissors that were always kept in the left drawer.

But before I sliced the first strand, I happened to glance in the mirror and I saw my face. Her hazel eyes, her thin lips, her dimples, like I was her daughter. Her flesh-and-blood daughter. I had never seen it before. It was almost as if when she died, her features became mine.

And then there was her hair. Oh gosh, the hair. Flame-red like hers, but down to the middle of my back. I had spent years growing it out, been so happy with its length. She had always been impressed with my patience in not cutting it. And yet, it didn't matter anymore. I slid a section of hair in between the two knife-like blades of the scissors and snipped.

The first flame hit the sink.

And in that moment, something snapped. I began to sob furiously. I slammed the scissors down  and cried all the tears I had held in for forty-eight painful hours. She was gone. What did hair, or anything else for that matter, change? Could my hair bring her back? Nearly blinded by tears, I picked up the scissors again, determined to finish the job. Snip, snip, flames hit the sink, glowing red against marbled white basin. As each hair fell, I felt the loss of her even more deeply, as if the scissors weren't cutting my hair but my heart. I was shredded, there was no going back.

When I came out of that bathroom, my hair was a mess, but my heart was worse.

***

It's been two years now. She's still gone. My heart still hurts. But my hair is finally shoulder-length, and my heart is mending. Perhaps the hair in itself did not matter; perhaps it was just a metaphor for something greater. One way or another, there are still flames on my head, and there is still a heart in my chest, if that means anything. Maybe I needed to break before I could be fixed. Maybe my hair needed to be cut before it could regrow. I guess I'm the only one who would know, but it's about her. It always will be. Hair or no hair, heart or no heart.