When I first decided to write down these thoughts about
self-worth, I believed I would write them primarily for my daughter. Who else, but a woman, could look at herself
through such a harsh, critical mirror as the one we've created. Then I realized that my sons probably look
just as critically at themselves as my daughter. We live with the incessant, crass, barrage of
media demanding that we fall in line with unobtainable, and unrealistic
perceptions of perfection. Although it is
impossible to hold back the tide of
unsolicited trendy demands, I still think that, as parents, we have a
responsibility to raise up our voices to help guide our kids through the muck. So, this little moment of self-awareness is
dedicated to the most important little people in my life. My children.
For my Children,
The other day after I got out of the shower, I took a good
long look at myself. (Whatever,
kids. Even Moms are naked underneath
their clothes.) I know, you are groaning
right now, probably saying, "Gross Mom!" And that isn't too far off from my own
sentiments at that moment. I mean, after
doing a cursory assessment, even I could see that I was a hot mess. From my thin, scraggly hair and loose wrinkly
skin to my missing nipples and disproportionate body…lets just say that things
were not as they once were.
But most of all, I noticed the scars. I now have scars literally crisscrossing some
parts of my body. While some have mostly
faded enough to blend into my stretch-marks others are still thick and
strong. I still have my expanders in my
body, so instead of smooth fake boobs, I have rock-hard, lumpy, bumpy pancakes
stuck to my chest. Like I said, the reflection
in the mirror wasn't pretty.
However, as I stood there, feeling discouraged, I remembered
a part of a talk from conference by President Uchtdorf. He recounted his experience as a child in
Germany as bombs rained down over his town during the end of World War II. He told how not too far from him, in the city
of Dresden, bombs also destroyed a Lutheran church. Apparently, when that church was rebuilt, the
builders reused some of those black, scarred bricks that survived the bombings sporadically
throughout the reconstruction. During
his talk, Uchtodorf had displayed a recent photograph of that church. It was amazing looking at a picture of that
beautiful church with its war-torn history proudly displayed throughout its
facade. Uchtdorf was using this experience
as a metaphor overcoming trials, but standing in front of my mirror, I took it
literally.
Right then I chose to see my scars as proof of life instead
of shameful visual of being damaged or less than I once was. It was a very conscious, very personal
paradigm shift. To set my decision in
stone, I decided to deconstruct each of the scars that I saw in front of
me. I began with my very first
scar. One that nobody sees and most
people never know is even there. However, it is one that, at times, I am hyper aware
of. It's my cleft palate scar that I
earned after two separate surgeries as a small child. That scar came along with about 12 years of
speech therapy. These days only children
are uninhibited enough to ask why my voice is so different from others. Most people don't ever mention it and those
who know me best accept my voice as part of me.
Like my short stature or my big eyes, my voice just makes me who I
am. For the most part, even I forget
about it. Only when I've told people
about my cleft palate and I know they are listening more intently to my speech,
does my anxiety kick in and my speech goes kuputz. At those moments, when the attention is
focused on my speech, I can only think about everything that tiny scar
represents to me. Years of frustration
from not being understood. Anger at
myself for not being able to communicate in the same fluid way that ideas and
thought ran through my mind. That
attention would often turn into anxiety that could freeze up my jaw and thicken
my tongue so that anything I said after that would just be a garbled mess. But that isn't all that scar means to
me. It also represents years of hard
work and the satisfaction of being able to clearly express myself in most
situations. I've succeeded in enough
public speaking, that the thought of talking in front of people hardly
registers on my 'greatest fears' list. I
am also rather proud that I was able to converse (no matter how poorly) in a
second language. French, no less. I'll hold on to that scar, if you please.
My crisscrossing scars are all about my babies. Little scars in my belly button from surgeries
clearing out polyps and endometriosis.
Four separate belly scars stretching hip to hip. The first one was from my ectopic pregnancy
that cause my fallopian tube to burst.
That emergency surgery saved my life even if it brought the grief of
loosing two little embryos. Next came an
emergency C-section that brought out my twins nearly 2 months early, saving
their lives and sending them straight on to the NICU to be given the medical
care they needed to survive and thrive.
And then my two scheduled C-sections, introducing our lives to two very
sweet, very active little boys. These
scars are my children. All of
children. Even though I didn't give
birth to Ethan, if I didn't lose those first twins, I would never have gone on
to adopt. So that first scar belongs to
him. These scars along with the
stretch-marks on my soft belly, thinning hair, smile wrinkles and the worry
lines are my honor badges displaying the work and sacrifice I gave to bring
those beautiful souls that I get to call my children, into our family. I deserve to wear the signs of all that
work. I earned my scars and I'm not going to hide
them because I am so proud of the children that changed my body and my
life. Every "I love you" and
sloppy kiss tips the scales back to my favor.
Now the two little inch long scars on my abdomen don't look
like much, and I guess you could argue that my whole pancreatitis/cholecystitis
debacle, where I ended up losing my gallbladder, wasn't worth gaining a scar
over, but I disagree. Those two little
scars represent the experience that led me to the most incompetent doctor who managed
to do one thing very right. That doctor
was the one who strongly advised me to get a mammogram. Me. A
41 year old who has absolutely zero cancer in her family. A very busy mother of 5 who had about a
million more important things to do than to get a unnecessary exam. It seemed like a silly thing to do at the
time, and of course, looking back I will always be grateful for those two
little scars. The cancer we found this
year would have been a nightmare to fight a couple years down the road.
That leads me right to those angry, thick scar that deleted
my nipples off my body. My giant
hyphens. They come accessorized with two
puncture hole scars on each side and one matching future scar on my back, to arrive
in October. These very intrusive scars
represent the advancement of technology and medicine that just gave me years of
my life that might have been lost had I not gotten them. They gave me ball games and birthday
parties. They gave me family trips and
watching my little loves grow up and love and experience their own lives. No.
I’m not trading in these specific scars either. They
just might end up being my most treasured marks. My symbols of the future.
That leaves only one scar left. A long thin line down my shin. This one doesn't really represent
anything. It's a scar left after slipping
on a stone I was racing towards with my girlfriends in college. Seriously.
Not everything has to mean something, you know. Sometimes we just do dumb things and pay the
consequence for our actions. Geez. Ya'll are way too serious for your own good.
Now, I'm sure that I'm not done with this masterpiece I like
to call my body. I'm going to keep
changing it (or gravity will do that for me) and I'm sure I have more scars in
my future. I mean, I hope I'm not done
yet. I'm only at the halfway mark. I am just sorry that it took me 40 years to
understand what true beauty really is.
It's not the make-up or trendy hairstyles. It's not in a sip from the fountain of youth
or even in Photoshop (Really…isn't that the same thing?). It's in the scars.
So, my dears, I love you all so much. In the end, though, that won't be enough. The thing that will really bring you
self-worth and happiness is if you love and accept yourselves. I
hope, with all my heart, that you do and that it doesn't take you 40 years to
do it.
Love, Mama.
