I dropped my bags, pulled open the curtains and saw this jaw-dropping view. I quickly snapped a picture. Little did I know that this photo- a view from our room in Santorini – would go places. To my home page of my website, my business cards, my internet logo.
In my excitement to capture the awesomeness of this movie view, I chopped off the top of the arch. In the perfection of the scene, I created an imperfection. And as the photo guy said when I went to have it blown up to poster size, “I could touch it up and create a top piece of the arch, but I would leave it alone. It’s got character.”
And so it is and I love it.
My daughter, Nava, survived a year-long medical crisis. Miraculously, she came through it all intact; after a tremendous amount of excruciatingly hard work. She got her life back and has been able to partake in it as before. A miraculous return of perfection.
By her throat is a small round indentation. A tracheostomy tube left it’s mark. Although it is not as severe as it was eight years ago, it retains it’s presence as a reminder of:
Fragility of life, survival, miracles, blessings, appreciation, gratitude, awesomeness.
When a doctor recommended that the “hole” be covered over with a bit of plastic surgery and therefore nobody would ever be able to tell she had had a tracheotomy, I immediately said no. She would have no elective surgery after surviving so much horror. And besides, as Catherine Zeta Jones once said of her trach mark, “I wear it as a badge of courage”. This is certainly Nava’s badge; and this imperfection shows character.
And so it is and I love it.
Can you embrace your imperfections? Can you still see the beauty beyond?
