The Lump 3

Posted on April 21, 2005 in Glands My Beard

The night before the surgery, I’m going to have to sacrifice a piece of myself. Granted it consists of nothing more than an excretion of dead cells. But I consider it to an emblem of what I am, a man who is unashamed of his man-ness. I speak, naturally, of my beard, that ring of hair which many men choose to unnaturally remove from their chin and jaw. It has to go because it covers the lump that conceals the parotid mass. The surgeon wants the area to be totally clean and I have decided to cut it completely back so it will grow back in evenly.

The moustache stays.

I prepare to cringe in the face of the inevitable declarations that I look better without it. Some will tell me to keep it off. My mother will celebrate if she sees me — once she tried to tell me that my beard was bad for my diabetes! Lynn’s grandmother told me that women don’t like men with beards to which Lynn said “Good!” I feel that my beard grants me an authenticity that the bare butt face look cannot convey. It says “This is the unfettered me, trimmed a bit, but a true statement of who I am.”

I’ll take one picture to show folks how I look without it and put it up in the revolving pictures. As I heal from the surgery, I shall return to who I was. I shall be Joel Sax, known to the world as a man who is unashamed of being himself. That field of dead hair is key to my identity.

Love me, love my beard.