As I sit here observing the photos before me, thoughts racing through my mind of the days ahead I am perplexed. To you these are beautiful photos filled with happy, full of life, flawless young ladies with no care in the world. Your assumption and perceptions are based on what you allow yourself to believe, and that is that we are 100% happy. The longest two feet in the entire world is that between your heart and your head. You see whatever your heart allows you to believe and that my friend is that these still shots depict our everyday story. You assume we wake and our bodies are ready to presume the american dream, there are silent commonalities between every lady. It is graced by warmth and a glow that hides itself well. The only way you would even know is if we dared to tell, but that is where the secret of strength lies beyond the porcelain white smiles.
The day has arrived and the results are in, you feel invincible and then the words crash off the doctors tongue like a wave in a hurricane. You're caught off guard, quickly questioning all that life is and will be. You feel betrayed, abandoned, and regretfully alone. How could this be happening to me? I am only in my twenties with a hole life to run and be free. Your friends, family, and coworkers are supportive, but do not understand. You wished you had someone to hold your hair back, but you manage with simply a rubber band. The days ahead are filled with test, questions, and procedures that you dread. But everyday you wake up and eventually pull yourself out of bed. For the time being you are externally flawless, but internally you are wasting away. The blue cocktail the doctor has prescribed makes you weak and sick on the inside. Night after night you befriend the porcelain god and day after day you feel your body slowly withering away. The make up no longer hides the black bags under your eyes, and your clothes are swallowing you whole because you can't figure out your size. As the weight falls off, your appearance begins to change and then comes the procedures where you learn to hide all of the pain. Needles to the chest, arms, stomach, back, legs, or anywhere the doctors sees best is how it begins, but never how it ends. The razor blades cut away pieces of flesh and you sit in silence praying to God that they pass the test. Soon after your body and appearance have been scarred and transformed.You don't feel normal, lovely, or even you anymore.
Melanoma cancer has a way of altering your body, mind, and soul. This disease creeps into your world and tries to wreak havoc in every part of your life. You find yourself fearful of going out in the sun, and then soon going out period for fear it will only get worse. Then one day you wake up, smile, and say bring on the world. Everyday is a personal test of perseverance and resilience. We smile even when we are in pain. We smile on the days when you feel like you have been hit by a truck. We smile knowing that under the band aid another flawless piece of us has been cut away. We smile through the physical transformation. Most importantly we smile just being thankful we have made to another day. To you it is just a scar, but to us it means we have fought and made it this far. So when the moment comes to freeze frame time and a picture captures one of our smiles, understand there is endurance of pain if you look closely in our eyes. But more importantly there is indescribable STRENGTH to humbly carry on. Our appearance and hearts are flawlessly imperfect, and perfectly flawed. Please do not judge one on a smile, that can deceive us all.
