My youngest child is blessed with the most outstanding of hair colors. It’s not just slightly red. Nobody is ever going to mistake his hair as an auburn or a strawberry blonde. This kid has a head of bright, in-your-face-vibrant, RED hair. Let’s just say, in a crowd of a thousand, you would be able to pick him out pretty quick, as long as he’s not wearing his infamous ballcap. He also has the blessing, well I think it’s a blessing, of this hair being extremely coarse. With all that natural texture, his hair doesn’t even know how to be flat to his head. He doesn’t like his hair long, so he has this perfect, short bouffant going on all the time, even when he takes a football helmet off.

Living with such audacious hair, he gets comments–both teasing and praise–everywhere he goes. Yet none of it, not even the mean jeering he sometimes gets seems to bother him. This last week, one of the high school football boys told my son as he was walking out to our vehicle after practice that he should do something about the ugly red hair on top of his head. I had my window open so I heard the comment, but before I could say anything, my son turned around.

“Thanks,” he said to the older boy. “At least we can confirm you’re not colorblind.”

He hopped into our truck with me sputtering into laughter. Of all my children, I’m the least worried about this child going to high school next year. The boy is downright fearless–even in the face of older students. And with those kinds of comebacks, I doubt there will be many who will try to raze him too much.