The Most Beautiful Woman I Know

Last weekend the kids came back from summer camp with hidden passengers. All five of them had head lice. This is not meant to be a criticism of the camp, which we have attended for four summers without incident. We love the camp and the kids, as ususual, had a wonderful time.

But head lice are a real pain. Special shampoos can kill the bugs but nothing can kill the eggs, which are called nits. Nits are laid near the scalp and are attached - glued really - to the hair shafts. They are tiny and you have to go through each strand of hair and pull them out one by one. If you miss a single nit, the infestation erupts all over again. In addition, you have to wash all the bedding and clothing, and put anything like stuffed animals or decorative pillows into bags and store them for weeks. All the furniture must be sprayed. All the carpets must be vacuumed.

Now imagine five cases of head lice, five sets of clothes, five little beds to keep lice free, scores of stuffed animals and pillows and things to take care of. We spent all day on Monday washing things, bagging things, and going through each child's hair strand by strand. Poor little 7-year-old Judith had the worst case and we cut her hair three times that day in an effort to make the task manageable. Her hair got shorter and shorter until finally she had nothing but a bit of fuzz on top. And each time the little lamb was shorn she wept bitterly.

On Tuesday I had to go back to work, leaving Allie to manage everything. She spent all day, re-vacuming, re-cleaning, re-spraying, running to the store for supplies, and trying to keep the boys from doing silly things like putting on each others' hats. In addition, she did something like 50 loads of laundry that day alone.

Early that morning she found more nits in the two older girls' hair and even some live bugs. This was after using the special shampoo which is supposed to kill the bugs. It was too much. Allie decided everyone's hair had to go. The boys are self-conscious about having their hair radically shorter, but to the girls it felt like a disaster. To be an 11-years-old girl and have to get what amounts to a buzz cut is pretty horrible.

So Allie got one too. In solidarity with her children she had one of the girls cut her hair until only about a half inch remained on top. She hasn't had it professionally cut yet, so it's still a bit uneven. After all, it was cut by an 11-year-old.

And yet Allie is still beautiful. The short hair highlights her femininity. Her face is so pretty that she really doesn't even need hair. And the fact that she is willing to go through some public embarrassment in order to stand by her children shows something even more important: she is a person of compassion, bravery, and self-sacrifice.

She is the most beautiful woman I know.