My hand trembles as I comb my Afro hair with a sturdy comb my husband gave me when our daughter was born. The comb drops on the floor. I get down to pick it up. Limbs that allowed me to get down and stand up over eight decades betray me. My body folds onto the floor. Every breath I take hurts my rib cage. When the funeral people enter my hut where my husband’s body lies, I stand up clutching the comb with wobbly legs. I put a black scarf over my head.

Yesterday morning when I reached for my husband of fifty-five years, he looked peaceful, as if he were asleep. But he was gone.

Where I live, Tiya, a tiny town about one hundred forty kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, we have centuries-year-old tradition. When someone we love dies, the women shave our hair.

“I will not shave my hair,” I told Welela, my sister, yesterday afternoon, pounding my clenched fists on my chest. Her jaw dropped.

“What?!” she looked at me, as if I was utterly mad.

“Your neighbors will not let you grieve in peace, Sinedu!” She warned.

Two hours later, a shengo (a council) was called. Shemagelewoch (elders in my town) barged into my hut. “This has never been done before. Why do you want to stomp your feet on traditions?” The weight of my promise to my husband hunched my shoulder like heavy stones.

“Not every tradition is good.” I said, repeating my husband’s words.Their eyes threw thousands of arrows at me. They stabbed their fingers in the air. “Everyone will shun you out!”

As I walk behind the funeral people carrying my husband’s body in a coffin, I breathe through the cloud threatening to steal every last ounce of oxygen from my lungs.Losing my husband is like stepping into that cold lake outside my small town, its coldness all-encompassing. Etalemahu, my next-door neighbor for the past thirty years, approaches. She holds my arm.

“Your hair…” she says.

“Yes?”

“You have not shaved it.”

“No.”

“But…” her hand tightens on my arm. If she keeps tightening her hand, she will break my old bones. Etalemahu looks at me. Looks at my husband’s framed photo on the wall. Then looks back at me. Not directly at my eyes, but at my unshaved hair.

“But… it is a tradition!” She yells.

A great weight on my chest bends me. Before I fall onto the floor, I hear my daughter’s voice, “Emama!” My daughter has arrived from the big city, with my granddaughter behind her. Like me, they’re wearing black from head to toe. My daughter rushes to my side, as does my granddaughter. They prop me on a nearby chair.

My husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer five years ago. He fought the rogue cells in his body. Chemotherapy. Radiation. Again. And again. To no avail. After another round of chemotherapy, the doctor’s grim words, “the treatment is not working,” dimmed the light in our room. One night, a year ago, my husband held my hands tightly,

“Promise me something, love.”

“What?”

“When I die, promise me you will not shave your hair.”

“Let us not talk about the end, please.”

“When I think about how you’re going to tear out your hair and shave it, I can’t sleep. Promise me you will not shave your hair,” he pleaded.

When my mother died, fifteen years ago, my husband barged into our bedroom, snatched the scissor I was cutting my hair with, and threw it on the floor.

“Does a bald head show how much you loved your mother?” he asked.

“No. But it’s our tradition. I have to do it.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Not every tradition is good.”

Did I tell you how much I love my husband?

Where I live people follow traditions like laws written on a stone. My husband grew up in the same small town. But he follows only traditions he respects: murmuring In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit before each meal, merekat (the eldest person in the room blessing everyone) at the end of a coffee ceremony, and says NO to traditions he believes harms human beings: shaving your hair when someone you love dies, wearing a dark cloth from head to toe for one year or more after a funeral.

“Promise me…” he continued begging, his eyes looking into my soul.

“I promise.”

“Adera (I trust you will keep your promise).”He said.

If I don’t keep my promise, my husband’s spirit will stalk me like my black dog that has lost its master, howling and insistent. “You did not keep your promise.” If I keep my promise, my neighbors will snarl at me with their claws, “Look at that old woman! When her husband died, she did not shave her hair!”

Something touches my hand.I blink. My daughter’s hand is gently unclasping the tight hold I have on my comb.More people have gathered for my husband’s funeral.

“Adera. I know you will keep your promise.” I hear a whisper, my husband’s voice as real as the sound of my daughter’s voice next to me.

A thick lump takes hold of my throat.

Thinking of my remaining years without my husband and my people turning their backs on me makes me want to be buried next to my husband. It almost makes me run to my bedroom to shave my hair. I refrain. I run a finger over my comb, borrowing strength from my husband’s love for me. “When I think about how you’re going to tear out your hair and shave it, I can’t sleep.” I see his haunted eyes when he spoke those words. I want my husband to rest in peace. So I’m going to bury him without shaving my hair.