Standing on the plaza at Rockefeller Center two weeks ago watching my husband Peter and his brother, Chris help the St. Baldrick’s Foundation and barber David Alexander break the Guinness Book of World Records for most heads shaved in an hour (73!), I admired the crowd gathered. A beautiful very bald little girl sat on her dads shoulders with a huge grin on her face as she watched head after head look more like her own. The elderly man with long silky white hair got shaved while holding a framed photo of a young man, his grandson I assumed. The very shy girl next to me, just tall enough on her tippy toes to see over the “TODAY SHOW” barrier was watching her first grade brother get shaved. Her blond braids did not give away a hint of the story her mother told me. Their whole family had shaved their heads ceremoniously in their kitchen a few years ago when her daughter’s hair had started to fall out from her second battle with cancer. She said, “We’re so fortunate, she’s one of the happy endings.” And, there was “Team Brent’s” family. They had lots of boxes of baseball hats for the shavees, and I offered to help move them along the sidewalk while we waited. They had a young boy who was shaving, and these hats were made for his team. Having gotten up at 4am to be there, I was not quite as sharp as I wish I’d been. “Oh, is that Brent who’s shaving?” I asked, and as soon as I’d said it, I knew I was sorry. Brent’s mom said quietly, “No, Brent was a son we had.” And there it was…just as my friend Melissa had described what she goes through every time she meets someone new. The moment of internal strife in which a parent who has lost a child has to decide whether or not to share their loss, this most intimate and painful truth with a perfect stranger, while making polite small talk. The sadness is palpable, but the stranger is never prepared, even standing in line for a pediatric cancer charity. It was a powerful day. Last year, I shaved my head for Melissa and her daughter Haley who had so little time together, and in gratitude of having so many years with my mom, despite Alzheimer’s disease stealing her memories away from her. So for those of you who are surprised that I’m shaving again, and wondering why, I guess I’d say, because there’s a need, and because I don’t have to. If you are moved to give or give again…thank you so much! You can use this link to donate online if you’d like: http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/717470/2014 You could share this with your friends… Take a look yourself at the St. Baldrick’s website, it’s pretty great… If you think you’d like to shave with me…it really is amazing…let me know. Bald does love company!

I'm shaving my head to raise money for childhood cancer research! Did you know that kids' cancers are different from adult cancers? It's true. And childhood cancer research is extremely underfunded. So I decided to do something about it by raising money for cures.

Now I need your help! Will you make a donation? Every dollar makes a difference for the thousands of infants, children, teens, and young adults fighting childhood cancers.