I was driving today along Osmeña Boulevard in the downtown area when a couple crossed the road before me towards Jollibee Metro. The wife carried on her arms their one-year-old girl.
What caught my attention was the distinct deformation of her neck, from the upper jaw to the collar bone. The white patches of discoloration on her skin told of a severe burning in that area. Should it be from hot water or direct fire, I had no way of knowing.
Then as the husband took his position on her side as they crossed the opposite lane, my eyes caught something white in his eyes. When I looked closer it became clear to me that what I saw was the husband's left eye. The eyes appeared homogeneously white. I can imagine how I would be able to look and see with that eye. And then it dawned on to me that her husband was blind. That might have explained how he seemed to stick near his wife as they crossed the street.
With a flash in my mind it dawned on me how difficult it might be to find someone with those manifest physical deformations. In today's world where outward looks took a prime consideration as far as relationship interests among people, how lonely life must be for people with those burns and those unseeing eyes?
But then this couple obviously loved each other. Despite their struggles in life, I could imagine how the supported each other, and continue to love each other. And it seems to me that their physical defects made loving even somehow easier. She would not fear losing him to someone because she might look ugly, because he got no eyes to notice that. All he need was touch to love and be loved.
At the same time, his blindness made him capable of appreciating the person in his wife without the hindrance of discriminating eyes. She was his life; and he sees no physical defect in her but a person he can touch and love.
In the same way our ugliness comes to us as a gift. It kept us from putting so much hope on the physical beauty that time eventually takes away. It brings us to the very core of what we are--persons who need to be loved too despite the ugliness that may not only come from a body that misfortunes destroy.
Part of being imperfect is the indirect admission to the fact that people are not completely beautiful. People have their ugly sides, so much so that other people may even look at it with extreme repulsion. Beautiful faces, filthy body odors; popular enough amongst peoples but hid sins that are so shameful even to mention.
We are beautiful, ugly people. But that's exactly what we need to be truly loved, and given the chance to love back, with all the ugliness and beauty that our nature has gifted us. These are gifts that may have made our lives worth living had we thought about it long enough.
Comments