This July I will be shaving my head for the 8th time with the Mommas. This May my daughter, Rayley, should be celebrating her 11th birthday. This June will be the 10th anniversary of her death. This year I seriously doubted that I would shave again. It was beginning to feel like a burden. To dedicate myself to raising money for the St. Baldrick's Foundation, I am forced to reconsider and rewrite my "why". At this point it seems redundant. I shave for my child. I shave for my friends' children. I shave for every parent who has heard "your child has cancer". I shave for every parent who has heard "there is nothing else we can do". The burden has started to feel too heavy. When I am having my head shaved beside the other Mommas, I always talk to Rayley. Then, I say the names of the other children who have personally touched me in the past 11 years. Most of them have also died. The number of children I honored was fairly small during my 1st shave in 2010. Over the years, that number has continued to grow. Last year after the shave in Las Vegas, I had a panic attack in my hotel room because I thought I forgot a child. The ultimate fear of a bereaved parent is to have their child forgotten. I might have forgotten someone. That broke my already broken heart. At that moment, shaving again was not an option. I decided to just sit in the idea that shaving was a choice not a requirement (and my shave routine was also a choice). Just recently, I woke up after having a dream that I was shaving again. I felt content in the realization that I wanted to shave again. So I have decided that I need to get back to the basics. I will raise money this year because the research funded by St. Baldrick's may someday find a cure or save a life or prevent lifelong damage. During the shave, I will talk to my daughter as I always have. Me and her. Plain and simple.