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My Husband's Barber Pulled Me Aside in the Parking Lot. What He Said About Ron Took the Air Out of My Chest. My husband Ron has been going to the same barber for 22 years. His name is Sal. Sal is 71 years old. He's been cutting hair in the same shop, on the same corner, since 1978. His shop has the red and white pole out front. The old kind. The one that still spins. Ron gets his hair cut every three weeks. Always has. It's not vanity. It's habit. He likes Sal. Sal likes him. They talk about the Phillies and the Eagles and the weather and whose grandkids are doing what. Twenty-two years of three-week appointments. That's something like 370 haircuts. That's a long time to sit in someone's chair. A few months back, I drove Ron to his appointment. I don't usually. He drives himself. But that morning his back was bothering him and he didn't feel like dealing with parking, so I said I'd drop him off and read in the car while I waited. I was sitting in the parking lot with a paperback and an iced tea when Ron came out. He waved. Got in the passenger seat. Said the cut looked good and thanks for the ride. I started the car. But before I could pull out, I saw Sal in my rearview mirror. He was standing in the doorway of the shop. Watching us. And then he held up a finger. The kind of wait a second finger you do when you've thought of something you forgot to mention. I rolled down my window. Sal walked over. He's a small man. Maybe five-six. Wears a white barber's smock over a button-down. Has done for as long as I've known him. He came to my window, not Ron's. That's what I want you to understand. He came to my window. "Mrs. Coleman," he said. "Could I have a minute when you've got one? Doesn't have to be today. Just sometime this week." I looked at Ron. Ron looked at Sal. "You can talk now," Ron said. "I'm not in a hurry." Sal hesitated. Then he said, "I'd rather it be just Mrs. Coleman, if that's alright. Nothing big. Just something I want to mention." Ron shrugged. He's not the kind of man who feels left out of a conversation. He pointed at the diner across the street. "I'll get a coffee. Honk when you're done." He got out and walked across the parking lot. Sal watched him cross the street. Then he leaned down a little to my window. "How long has Ron's hair been thinning at the back like that?" I blinked at him. I'd been driving over here with a paperback and an iced tea. I was not prepared for that to be the question. "I — I don't know. A while?" "How long is a while?" "A year? Two years? I don't really keep track." Sal nodded slowly. "Mrs. Coleman, I cut a lot of hair. I've cut Ron's hair for 22 years. I see a lot of heads. I'm going to tell you something and I want you to take it the way I mean it." I waited. "Your husband is dimming." That was the word he used. Dimming. He said it the way you'd say snowing or raining — like it was just a description of what was happening in the room. "His color is off. He's lost weight in his face — and not the good kind. The kind you lose when your body is running on fumes." "He sits down faster than he used to. Used to be he'd stand at the counter and yak with me while he waited his turn. Now he sits in the chair by the window before I've even called him back." "His handshake is softer. I've been shaking that man's hand for 22 years, Mrs. Coleman. It's softer." I sat there with my hands on the wheel. I didn't know what to say. Because Sal had just said, in 60 seconds, every single thing I had been refusing to let myself put words to for the last year. He held up both hands. "I'm not a doctor. I want to be clear about that. I'm a barber. I cut hair. But I see people. I see them for a lifetime, three weeks at a time. And I'm telling you what I see." "Has he been to the doctor?" "He goes every six months. The doctor says everything is fine except his cholesterol." Sal nodded. "His cholesterol is high?" "For years. They keep adjusting his medication." He looked at me with these tired, patient eyes. "My wife's brother. Same age as Ron. Same kind of slow fade — happened over the better part of a decade, the way it does. One year looks just like the last one until you stack five of them on top of each other and realize the man in front of you isn't the same man." "He used to fish. He used to build things. There was a stretch where he just sat. He'd start a sentence and forget where he was going." I felt my stomach drop. "Is he —" "He's still with us. He's not the same. But he's here." He paused. "What his daughter brought home a few years ago was a beetroot supplement. The whole-food kind. Not the powder. She'd read about it somewhere. He kept doing everything his doctor told him to do — his medication, his diet, all of it — and he added this on top." "And?" "And he started doing crosswords again. He started caring whether the Phillies won. He picked up a fishing rod for the first time in a long time." I looked across the street at the diner. Ron was sitting at the counter with his back to us, talking to the waitress. "Mrs. Coleman, I'm telling you this because nobody else is going to tell you. The doctor isn't going to mention it. Your kids won't see it because they don't see him every three weeks the way I do. Ron won't say a word about it because Ron is a man and men don't say these things." "I'm telling you. That's all. What you do with it is your business." He straightened up. Tapped the door frame twice. Walked back into the shop. I sat in the parking lot for another five minutes before I honked for Ron. When he got in, he asked what Sal wanted. I lied to him. I told him Sal had asked about a Christmas tip arrangement for next year. Ron believed me because Ron has no reason not to believe me. We drove home. I made dinner. We watched something on TV. He went to bed at 8:45 — he's been going to bed at 8:45 for about a year now, even though he used to stay up till 11 — and I sat on the couch with my laptop. I looked up the supplement Sal had mentioned. The brand his brother-in-law had used is called Rosabella. I read everything on their website. I read it twice. Then I read it a third time, because I'm the kind of person who needs to read something three times before I trust it. The thing I kept coming back to was the processing. They source small-farm beets and cold-press them at low temperatures. Then they capsule the result. The whole reason for the cold-pressing — they explain this on the site — is that the active compounds in beets, called betalains, are sensitive to heat. The deep red color of a beet is the betalains. The compounds that support your body's natural antioxidant balance and cellular energy. Most beetroot supplements are processed with high heat. That damages the betalains before the powder ever reaches the bottle. Which is probably why a lot of people have tried beetroot in some form and felt nothing. They were taking heat-damaged product. The cold-pressing is the whole point. That made sense to me. I'd cooked beets before. I'd watched the color change when you cooked them too long. If heat changes the color, heat probably changes what makes the color, too. The next morning, before I did anything else, I called Ron's doctor's office. I told the nurse who picked up exactly what I was thinking about. A beetroot supplement. Cold-pressed. For general antioxidant and cellular energy support. I asked if there was any reason — given Ron's cholesterol medication, given his age, given his bloodwork — that he shouldn't add it. She put me on hold for about four minutes. She came back and said the doctor had no concerns at all. She said the doctor actually recommended general antioxidant support to a lot of patients Ron's age. She said to make sure Ron stays on his cholesterol medication, take everything as prescribed, and come in for his regular check-up in February. I want to be very clear about something. This phone call was, in my opinion, the most important step. Not the supplement. The phone call. If you take nothing else from this story, take that. You call the doctor's office before you add anything to what someone you love is already taking. I ordered a bottle that afternoon. It came in three days. I put it next to the coffee maker. Ron came in for his morning coffee, saw the bottle, picked it up, read the label, set it back down. "What's this?" "It's a beetroot thing. I called Dr. Almeida's office. He said it's fine to add. I want you to try it for sixty days." "Why?" I almost told him the truth. Almost told him about Sal in the parking lot. I didn't. I said, "Because I want you around for a long time. And I read about it and I want you to try it." He looked at me for a moment. Then he picked the bottle back up. "Okay," he said. He opened it that morning. Two capsules with breakfast. The first two weeks, I didn't see anything. I'll be honest. I started to feel like Sal had spooked me into spending money for nothing. The third week, something small happened. Ron stayed up to watch the end of the Phillies game. He'd been falling asleep on the couch in the seventh inning for about a year. That night he made it through the ninth. He turned the TV off himself and walked to bed. Tiny thing. But I noticed it. Then the next week, he asked me what I thought about driving out to his brother's place over Memorial Day weekend. His brother lives four hours away. We hadn't been out there in two years. Ron had been saying the drive was too much. That week, he brought it up himself. By the second month, he was standing at the counter again when he made coffee. He used to lean against the counter. For about a year, he'd been pulling out a stool and sitting. That second month, he started standing again. I don't think he even noticed. He's still on his cholesterol medication. He hasn't changed anything his doctor told him to take. His bloodwork in February was, in Dr. Almeida's words, "in a better place than it's been in a few years." The doctor didn't say why. I don't know if anyone can really say why. What I know is that Ron is back at the counter. He's standing. He's making coffee. He's planning a trip to see his brother. I went with him to his next haircut. I waited in the car this time too, with my book. When he came out, Sal didn't come to my window. He just stood in the doorway of the shop and looked at me. He nodded once. That's all. He nodded once. I started crying in the parking lot before Ron got back to the car. I dried my face before he opened the door. He didn't notice. That's the part of being married for a long time you don't tell anyone about. The crying you do that nobody sees. P.S. If you've been watching someone you love dim down — if you can see it happening but no one will name it — the first thing I'd say is talk to the doctor. Tell the doctor everything you're noticing. The energy. The color. The way he sits down faster than he used to. Don't let anyone wave it off as "he's just aging." Some of it might be aging. Some of it might not. You won't know until you say it out loud to someone who can actually look at his bloodwork. P.P.S. If you decide to try Rosabella, call the doctor's office before you start it, the way I did. Just to confirm there's no reason not to add it given whatever else he's taking. It takes one phone call. That phone call is the most important step. Then put it on the counter next to the coffee maker. Two capsules with water in the morning. Don't change anything else. Just add this one thing. Give it sixty days before you decide anything. Some people notice something within the first two or three weeks. Others take longer. Bodies are different. Be patient with him. P.P.P.S. Rosabella has a 90-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied for any reason, every penny back. No questions asked. That's a sensible policy for a supplement. It gives you long enough to actually see whether it helps before you decide. P.P.P.P.S. Rosabella is a small operation. They harvest and bottle on their own schedule, so I keep an extra bottle in the cupboard just in case. They currently offer a multi-bottle option that I went with myself. Worth a look. P.P.P.P.P.S. Sal retired last month. He'd been planning it for a while, he told Ron at the last appointment. His knees can't do the standing anymore. The new barber is his nephew. Ron likes him fine. But when Ron told me Sal was retiring, I went out to the car and sat in the driveway for a minute before I came back in the house. Twenty-two years. Three hundred and seventy haircuts. And one quiet conversation in a parking lot that I'll be grateful for the rest of my life. https://track.tryrosabella.com/feb71eaf-4594-4b50-b39e-f5e5eeea7537 DISCLAIMER Individual experiences vary. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.