This is my son Micah. He shaved off all of his hair a few weeks ago. All of it. Well he did not pluck his eyebrows. In the photo text he sent me he asked a question.

 

"Do you still love me?" He knows that I am partial to his red hair. At least more so than shiny skin.

 

He is taking a photo of himself for a year while it grows back. This is the proof that his body it trying to keep his head and chin warm. After twenty some days there is fuzz. I wish I could feel it but he lives far away. 

 

I love that he knows it will indeed come back. He has seen the unceasing growth over his lifetime, and come to trust the process.

 

Feelings that have disappeared can come back too. The other day a friend told me that she and her husband went to the wedding of her niece. Their daughter planted herself between them on the pew. As the couple came to the point in the service of saying their vows she realized that they were the very same words she said herself years before. She reached across her daughter's lap for her husband's hand, who was also remembering. It was a tender moment.

 

Where were those feelings hiding? Maybe in the same place that hair hides until it breaks through the scalp. I do not think that if I could look inside my son's head, I would see a supply of hair waiting for its turn in the sun. It comes when you need it, when you run out of what you already have. It is the same way with love for your spouse. But I do not think I can take a picture of it.

 

I have come to trust the process. I now believe that marriage love is designed to keep your heart warm, and will keep trying to grow back no matter how many times you shear it off. 

 

 

By the way, the answer to Micah's question was yes.