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Locks Of Love Donating my hair was worth it by Sally Conroy I've heard of phantom limbs before. After giving at least ten inches of my hair away (I wouldn't let the stylist tell me exactly how much she cut off), I had phantom hair for days. As an admitted bearer of nervous habits, I used to twist my hair when I was worried. After I donated my hair to Locks of Love, an organization that makes wigs for cancer patients, it took me about seven hours to attempt to fidget with a longer piece, and roughly seven hours and three swipes through thin air where hair once was to realize how much of a change I'd just undergone. I'd decided to give my hair because I'd woken up in an impulsive mood (the cause is noble; my motives probably weren't), and now that the mood had mellowed I was stuck with a long-term change. For about half a second, I regretted doing something so drastic. Just then, one of my best friends walked in talking on the phone to her mother, who was still in treatment for cancer after finding it the semester before. She was patting her hair where, that morning, a full mane of beautiful hair had been. My friend had donated her hair in support of her mother, even though I had seen her, over the past few years, cry at any haircut more drastic than a trim. Suddenly, in the face of someone I knew and loved who was dealing with cancer, the shock of having a third of the hair I'd had that morning seemed trivial. I remembered that somewhere, there is a little girl who wonders every morning why she had to get sick, why she can't be the same as all of her friends. I remembered that that little girl would get to wear my hair, would get to feel just that little bit closer to how she had felt before her fight had started. I would do it over again in a heartbeat. Well, maybe a couple of years' worth of heartbeats. I just hope that whoever gets my hair has more patience with it when it gets humid outside. Locks Of Love Gallery