This essay is an exploration in the process of queering hegemonic paradigms of grieving and body image. I use autoethnography to question my feelings about my own body hair and the sudden death of my mother. I show how experiences of sudden death not only allow us to reflect upon our current relationships and life stories, but help us transform them as well. I take the reader through my own contradictory history with body hair from childhood to the present, through times my mother helped me love it and times others pushed me to hate it. Ultimately, I argue that through writing a deceased loved one’s legacy on our own bodies and holding onto grief, we might not only reframe minor bodily stigmas but also transcend them.
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