She Is Beauty...

She is beautiful....

...I sighed to myself.

In that shop, twenty years ago.

And then I might have glanced away from her and down to my own leg. To my varicose veins, bulging and purplish, more obvious every day. Or perhaps I remembered standing in front of a mirror in a dark bathroom, a teenager again. Because without a light on, I couldn't see my pimples. So many welts they pulsed with an ache. I had stood in the dark, one time and fifty more, waiting for my body to transform. For my breasts to be bigger, though on the small side they would stay.

Mirror mirror on the wall, from a girl to a woman.

In that shop, twenty years ago...

....you will come home with me.

She didn't disappoint, this marble statue. From her perch on my fireplace mantel, she kept watch as my boys skipped and threw balls. She calmly looked on as our days turned to years.

Then on a recent evening, a thunderbolt came...

...she has no arms.

My God, she has no arms.

So I rushed to see her on that shelf. Her place now. She had always been Beauty, her mask of peace, her sweet sureness.

And yup, no arms.

Her name is Venus. Just Venus, not Amputee. Never have I considered or called her Amputee.

Yet then as we are prone to do, I turned back to that mirror. Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all...

...well at least I lost the right bunion and that misshapen mole and the ingrown toenail too.

Yet if we see more, in that old mirror...

...once upon a time, I sat across from teachers in school conferences. Times I thought would never end, moments that seemed to last forever. Trying to understand a boy's battle with homework, fearful and worrying, oh so tired from late nights, midnight and beyond. Forehead furrowed, once more and again, as I typed bewildered and sometimes desperate encouragement into texts. To one son and then another. Because growing up is hard sometimes, a mother knows, with her cinched brow.

And those lines said one day...

....we will live on her face forever.

The same was said by the spots on my hands. In dishwater, meal after meal. My family needing another casserole, of course they did and do. As we have gathered round our table, to talk and laugh, and to argue sometimes. But mostly to laugh, leaving smile lines too. Then the bumps on my foot said...we'll stay, we must stay...after all those walks to Africa and back again. And pacing down a hallway cradling a restless babe or two. When it was two feet, wrapped in shoes with ribbons. Pretty yes, but not orthopedically correct. For dancing wasn't right in dowdy footwear, to a young woman who twirled and spun at a bar called Nite Lites.

Those feet would come to burn in protest, but not before they had taken her to grand and lovely places, oh such lovely places.

And still, my friends, every body holds a secret. Sometimes more than one. Here is one of mine. Mirror mirror on the wall, I will tell it to you now.

For several years before my tumor made its introduction, I began to avoid glancing at my legs. Veins were protruding, calves too big. So dresses stayed in my closet. No shorts, never. I had no time to probe or worry or tell a best friend about this new aversion, with all the late night texts and conferences and balls, you know. And then this odd dread came too, I couldn't name or catch it, just some guesses in the middle of my busy life. Maybe I knew something fearful and awful was in my leg's future. Perhaps already growing in it, and it scared me too much.

Or maybe my leg up and revolted from lack of attention, a rowdy toddler, its rebellion making an illness and a problem.

Well if she won't pay attention, I will get sick, make her notice me finally and completely.

Now I don't understand this old fear to see my legs, nor do I need to unravel a mystery. For I have lived long enough to know we all have strange things about us.

Quirky, weird stuff, we humans are and do. And I have better things to do now, like run up hills at sunset and paint my fake toenails pink.

And yet, I wonder how we disregard our butts, thighs, or lips. (You fill in your blank). When we judge parts of ourselves unworthy or unattractive, not a picture perfect something that we see in magazines.

When we look to another and sigh at her beauty...

...then we look in a mirror, ask a question of the fairest.

So now I have lost a leg that I thought was not enough, but my story is not over. Like any good encore, I have a second chance. For one is left, so I caress its veins and bunion, my leg's perfect curves.

And I see her smile when I bring out the lotion. Yes she smiles. Up there on her shelf, her marble moves a little.

Because Venus knows love...

...when it is real.