MONTAGUE — Eight-year-old Leah Thibault of Montague will play Rapunzel no more. She bid adieu to her long hair recently, and hopes it will someday give a sick child the chance to do so instead.
Thibault got her first haircut in over five years at Hair It Is inside Wilson’s Department Store this month, and instead of sweeping it into the trash, she decided to give it to Locks of Love, a Florida-based national organization that collects hair donations to produce wigs for people who’ve lost their own hair to illnesses like cancer or alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss.
Part of the haircut was for practicality — her grandmother, Robin Alex, also of Montague, no longer has to braid two feet of hair each morning, and Thibault is spared the pain of the pulling and tugging.
“We talked about it for a while. She can brush it herself and condition it herself now. She’s old enough to be at that stage,” Alex said.
But Alex and Thibault’s own family history of losing loved ones to cancer and having a few survivors among their ranks factored into the decision to donate the hair, Alex said.
“I thought it’d be a good idea to find a good way to do it, to get her more excited,” Alex said. “The haircut had a lot of positives to it.”
Alex said she hopes the donation will put “a little more normal” in the lives of the children who receive the resulting wig.
“I hope it makes them feel a little more whole again, after going through something that takes so much,” she said.
Alex and Thibault said they hope their example will prompt other local girls to step up and donate hair in the future.
You can reach Tom Relihan at: 413-772-0261, ext. 264
or trelihan@recorder.com
On Twitter: @RecorderTom