A friend suggested I post my story.
It concerns an incident I experienced not to long after I lost my wife, Sherry.
We had been fighting this cancer, off and on for ten years. In the last year Sherry had become more saddened with her appearance. She would cry and apologize to me because she “was ugly”. Understandably, there was little I could say to comfort her or change her perception of herself. It was not something she could accept. Soon she was gone.
It has taken quite some time for me to let go. There have been many days of abject sadness, sometimes with uncontrollable tears. It was during one of these episodes that I experienced what I would like to share with the women who are feeling the way Sherry did.
As I rambled about our home, talking to her, reliving our days, the good and the bad. I stopped in front of a photo of us, taken in her final months. The effect of all she had been through were obvious in the photo. Still there was that smile she always had on her face. Spontaneously I hollered, “You ARE beautiful”. Angry that she thought otherwise.
It has been several years since then. Today I am able to look at those days more realistically and with a bit less emotion. In a world where image is so important to us all, myself included, I question what had taken place that day. My conclusion is that I honestly saw the person I loved not the image the camera saw. I know some may be unable to understand or accept this. I am not sure I am able to wrap my head around it. It seems to defy logic. But I do know what I saw and felt.
I am writing this so those who are in a like situation may somehow understand that those who love you see the person they love, not the person who stares back at you from the mirror. Try to accept that “beauty IS in the eye of the beholder”
Las Vegas, NV