Week 2 since I shaved. Life goes on. What was once considered change is now the accepted norm. Yet, the thought still lingers…how much longer will this continue? The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once penned "If we have our own why of life, we can bear almost any how." The ‘how’ is self evident…my ‘why’ is my two teenage children.

Good times or bad, I need be a positive role model for my children. I dare not wax impatient for fear of the unintentional lesson provided. Instead, I must stand fast in the day and save reservations for the privacy of the night. Nonetheless, we all have our days. Yesterday was a day that tried one’s resolve.

My youngest is in the midst of her final exams. This is a stressful time for all and her anxiety spills over into the family. She’ll do anything to avoid study, including tackling the task of cleaning her ferret. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, this chore is way down on the really want-to–do list. Add in a large, caffeinated soda, my fault for letting her order this with lunch, and my youngest daughter was bouncing off the walls.

Patience. She didn’t need the extra stress of me pressing her to study. Instead, I took a deep breath, then cleared a spot on the living room floor for her to work. She prefers to work on the floor as a forest of paper is far less formidable when spread out into small piles. We sat together, sorting through the papers in an attempt to organize the chaos. Enter the family cat and ferret. In a flash, the organized piles disappeared; a picture reminiscent of kids v. the just raked leaf pile on an autumn day. Back to square one. Patience. Patience.

The critters, drained from the flurry of activity, took a much appreciated breather in the afternoon sun. The papers, again sorted and organized, formed a small village on the carpet. Time to begin. The list of review topics was daunting; three full pages of single line headings. This would be no small task. We chanted the mantra…”How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” And so we began.

More than four hours passed before the last topic was put to rest. My daughter smiled. She had eaten the elephant and lived to tell the tale. I helped her put her papers back into the binder, this time with a modicum of organization, the recently completed study sheets prominently placed in the front. She hugged me in thanks for my help, recognizing that she fairs better with a study buddy than alone. For me, any time spent with my daughter is precious.

Our day together had come to an end. She sat quietly in the car as the effects of the caffeine waned on our way to her Mother’s. Patience had paid off as the task at hand is complete…she is confident; she is ready and all accomplished without a scene.

I arrived home to a house which was all too still. The ferret was fast asleep in his hammock while the cat sat in the window soaking in the last of the sun's rays. The dinner dishes, left in lieu of studies, soaked in the sink. I busied myself cleaning the remnants of the day’s activities, thankful of the day’s lesson…patience.

The patches continue to grow. Somehow my mind reasoned that shaving my head would stop the progress. Wishful thinking but not far from true. As Yogi Berra once quipped, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” I’ve accepted that my hair may continue to fall out for some time. Re-growth, should I be so lucky, will then take many more months. Until that time I must take my own advice and be patient…