What began as a joke evolved into one of the nicest gifts a mother could ever receive from her son.
An Arizona guy spent nearly three years growing out his hair so that he could donate it to his mother, who had lost her hair due to radiation.
“It’s a no-brainer,” Matt Shaha explained. “She gave me the hair in the first place.”
For years Melanie Shaha dealt with a benign brain tumor.
“I have had a recurrent benign brain tumor, a pituitary tumor, and I’ve had surgery twice in 2003 and in 2006,” she said.
She had two successful surgeries to remove it, but in 2017 when it showed up again she was prescribed radiation.
“I asked (my doctor), ‘Will I lose my hair?’ and they said ‘No.’”
Three months later she lost her hair.
TWO DAYS…
“Not having hair, you stick out like a sore thumb and well-meaning people can say things that break your heart,” she told CNN’s Today. “I don’t mind being sick; I just don’t like appearing sick. “I’d rather blend in than stand out at the store.”
Melanie’s 27-year-old son joked one day, shortly after she began losing her hair, that he would grow his hair out and create her a wig.
A year ago I started working with one of the most generous humans I’ve ever known, Matt Shaha. One of the first…
“We were super pumped and when they started cutting, we bawled,” Melanie told me.
When the time came, he even spent $2,000 to have the wig created.
The mother and son discovered a wigmaker who hand-stitched the hair, resulting in a lighter and more comfortable wig. Melanie got her wig cut and styled after it arrived.
“Seeing her in it, it’s the first time I had seen my mom look like that since she lost it, so it’s been about four years,” Matt told me.
Melanie, who was in love with her new look, admitted it’ll be hard to top her son’s gift. “It sure fills your emotional cup.”
