Although we may be happy with ourselves in many different ways, most of us tend to look more at our flaws than we do the good things that we have to offer in life. Some people tend to do this to the extreme and they may spend their entire life harping on the little issues that they see in themselves. That was the case in the following fictional story about a woman who always felt that she was ugly. When she went to a plastic surgeon to fix the situation, he ended up teaching her a very valuable lesson.
Do you feel your face is imperfect? Are you intimately familiar with every little problem that lies on that mask that lies behind your eyes? Or is it something you do not think about much?
Even when people say they don’t care about how they look, they’re lying. Our self-esteem is based on how we look, because it affects how people make us feel. But this story might make you regain faith in your fellow man.
His thumb softly rubbed the twisted flesh on my cheek. The plastic surgeon, a good fifteen years my senior, was a very attractive man. His masculinity and the intensity of his gaze seemed almost overpowering.
“Hmmm,” he said quietly. Then he smiled and said, “Are you a model?”
Is this a joke? Is he kidding? I asked myself and I searched his handsome face for signs of mockery. What’s he getting at? No way would anyone ever confuse me with a fashion model. I was ugly. My mother casually referred to my sister as her pretty child. Anyone could see I was homely. After all, I had the scar to prove it.
The accident happened in fourth grade, when a neighbor boy picked up a hunk of concrete and heaved the mass through the side of my face. An emergency room doctor stitched together the shreds of skin, pulling cat-gut through the tattered outside of my face and then suturing the shards of flesh inside my mouth. For the rest of the year, a huge bandage from cheekbone to jaw covered the raised angry welt.
A few weeks after the accident, an eye exam revealed I was nearsighted. Above the ungainly bandage sat a big, thick pair of glasses. Around my head, a short fuzzy glob of curls stood out like mold growing on old bread. To save money, Mom had taken me to a beauty school where a student cut my hair. The overzealous girl hacked away cheerfully. Globs of hair piled up on the floor. By the time her instructor wandered over, the damage was done. A quick conference followed, and we were given a coupon for a freestyling on our next visit.
“Well,” sighed my father that evening, “you’ll always be pretty to me.” But I could plainly see on his face that he also wanted to say, “even if you aren’t pretty to the rest of the world.”
Right. Thanks. As if I couldn’t hear the taunts of the other kids at school. As if I couldn’t see how different I looked from the little girls whom the teachers fawned over. As if I didn’t occasionally catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. In a culture that values beauty, an ugly girl is an outcast. Young girls are conditioned to think that their whole value comes from their physical appearance. My looks caused me no end of pain. I sat in my room and sobbed every time my family watched a beauty pageant or a “talent” search show.
Eventually, I decided that if I couldn’t be pretty, I would at least be well-groomed. Over the course of years, I learned to style my hair, wear contact lenses and apply make-up. Watching what worked for other women, I learned to dress myself to best advantage. And now, I was engaged to be married.
That old scar, however, shrunken and faded with age, stood between me and a new life. If I could just get rid of it… Or make it less noticeable at least.
“Of course, I’m not a model,” I replied with a small amount of indignation.
The plastic surgeon crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me appraisingly. “Then why are you concerned about this scar? If there is no professional reason to have it removed, what brought you here today?”
Suddenly he represented all the men I’d ever known. The eight boys who turned me down when I invited them to the girls-ask- boys dance. The sporadic dates I’d had in college. The parade of men who had ignored me since then. The man whose ring I wore on my left hand. My hand rose to my face. The scar confirmed it; I was ugly. The room swam before me, as my eyes filled with tears.
The doctor pulled a rolling stool up next to me and sat down. His knees almost touched mine. His voice was low and soft.
“Let me tell you what I see. I see a beautiful woman. Not a perfect woman, but a beautiful woman. Lauren Hutton has a gap between her front teeth. Elizabeth Taylor has a tiny, tiny scar on her forehead,” he almost whispered.
I was taken aback. I laughed lightly and said, “You’re a plastic surgeon, isn’t it bad business to tell people they’re good enough as they are?”
He shook his head. “There are people out there who truly do require plastic surgery, horrible accidents or birth defects for example.”
Then he paused and handed me a mirror. “But look at yourself, you’re clearly not one of those people. I think to myself how every remarkable woman has an imperfection, and I believe that imperfection makes her beauty more remarkable because it assures us she is human.”
He looked me in the eye and continued, “Imperfections develop character. It is character that develops charisma and the glow of woman.”
“When a person falls in love, if their mate has an imperfection, that imperfection becomes special. They become protective of their mate’s imperfection.”
“We fall in love with a person, not with body parts. Body parts become special, when the person becomes special.”
As the tears were rolling down my face, He said, “You are a very attractive woman with a very small imperfection. Whether you know it or not, it has given you the glow of woman.”
He pushed back the stool and stood up. “I won’t touch it unless you absolutely insist. Don’t let anyone else touch it, either. You are delightful, just the way you are. Beauty really does come from within. Believe me. It is my business to know.”
What a wonderful doctor. I left his office, not with the scar removed from my face, but with a tear removed from my heart.
