Down But Not Out

When popular Marco Island hairdresser Maria Elena Pujol was injured after falling in a parking lot recently, she knew she would be away from her business, Sascha’s, and her beloved long-term clientele for a period of time. But when her surgery turned out to be more serious than originally planned, she thought her career was over.

 "The most important thing,” Pujol said, "is that I want my customers and clients and friends to know that I thank them for their prayers and their concerns for me and for supporting me in every way for the long journey that I've had on Marco Island. It's really been my heart and soul there. I'm working towards coming back. It's just going to take me a little longer than I thought, but I have to just be patient because you can't force healing.”

Pujol received good news recently when test results ruled out cancer.

"I was going to put it all away because I thought that they found cancer,” Pujol said. “I thought that would be the end of my career. It gives me something to live for, you know? That's what I've known all my life to make people feel pretty and happy. There’s something about getting your hair done that I don't care what doctor you go to or what pill you get, you just feel so fresh and good and clean and you feel rejuvenated. And it's nice to sit in the chair and have somebody pamper you and not just gossip. It's just a feeling of just being a stylist, being a hairdresser, being a barber, being anybody that you can touch somebody and let them feel comfortable. People tell things to that person that you wouldn't tell your loved ones. But it's something that is a bond. And that's why I don't want to lose my clients. A lot of them have moved away, and a lot of them have passed because I've already been, what, four decades here? But then I have young ones and they come back. But I truly felt when this injury happened and I had to wait for a couple of months for it, my chest wall was very inflamed.”

Taking it easy is easier said than done for someone like Pujol, who is known for her high energy level by her loyal clientele, many who have been with her since the early 1990s.

“They know how hard I've worked all my life,” Pujol said. "I think that I can just snap out of it. But this accident was a little bit more than I thought that it would be. And now I'm just in my healing process. I'm going to just need another month to see if I can work towards getting back to work. And I've had a lot going on through my years of having my own business being self-employed through a lot of financial ups and downs with the market. And then it was the oil spill and then it was my daughter's loss, her accident, to rebuild again and face life.”

Many wondered how Pujol would bounce back from the loss of her daughter Jenny, who lost her life in a car accident at 14 while returning home from Lely High School. Jenny was Pujol’s world.

"You know how much I loved her,” Pujol said. "She was my rock. She was everything I had. She was my purpose. I mean, she was my whole life, you know? Right when she died, I died with her. And I had a lot of people that loved me and nourished me through the journey I had. I couldn't do it alone without good friends and people that supported me through that. I lost a lot of my clientele when that happened because they were sad to see me sad. But I had a purpose to get up and get dressed and be there and give it my all. And I even had a police escort all the time to take me home because no one was home anymore. So everybody was worried that I was going to hurt myself and that would never happen because I'm a woman of faith. And when you have faith, you're never alone. It was a lot of ups and downs emotionally."

When Pujol was in her biggest time of need, she found the people of Marco Island were right there beside her.

“Yeah, a lot of the true islanders that truly knew me were there for me,” she said. "The small town of first settlers that I met, especially Dwayne Naftil. Dwayne was one of my first big brothers.”

Hair design has been Pujol’s entire professional life. And for the most part, her career has been right here on Marco Island.

"I've been at it since I was 18 years old,” she said. "I actually started doing my dad's hair when I was nine, ten years old. You know, when you're poor, and you're a small community, and the Latin people always kind of help one another, just like Marco Island does. That’s what I love most about Marco. I like to give back to all the community, all the different groups."

Pujol believes the Marco community will support her while she recuperates. Sascha’s remains open while Pujol is on the mend.

"I've worked really hard to accomplish what I've accomplished,” she said. "I just don't want them to give up on me. I'm going to be doing everything step by step to get back behind the chair. And I just feel that Marco has such a strong Christian base and loving base. I've got just wonderful people from all over the world that I've been very blessed to work with and be around. And they give me strength every day, and I just don't want them to worry about me. I'm so grateful that they pray for me because the blessings are coming. It's just that I'm the kind of person that I thought, 'Oh, this will be a cinch.' But it wasn't. So I'm taking baby steps. I have to take time to get back to be the person that can perform. And I have my mother here. I told her that she had to come because I really needed her because I couldn't even open the refrigerator door or dress or bathe myself. It was a little bit more intense than I thought it would be.

"I just need them to know that I'm coming back and to be supportive of the girls because I really don't want to lose my business. You know, that's my lifeline. That's my passion and I work so hard. It’s going to take some time. And my breathing with my diaphragm that takes a while to heal. I just really want them not to wonder what happened to me. I have people from all over the world that are concerned about me, and I just want them to know that I can't reach out to them because I can't be around a lot of people. I don't want to catch cold because my whole work is on my chest wall. So if I get a cold or something, it's really going to take longer to heal all the connecting tissue. That's why I'm keeping low. The best way for people to support me now is to go to the shop."