What is it? Or rather, what can we deduce could CAUSE this beauty?......Ashes. Loss. Trial. Hurt. Sorrow. Pain. Struggle. Opposition. Anguish.
The original sources of the above images are unknown to me. I got nowhere in my search for their origins or stories. Short captions on the second and third pictures indicate that the women are 80 and 100 years old, respectively. I would venture that the woman in the first image was near these ages herself.
What is something similar about all of these pictures? What are a few common denominators? What is the first thing you notice? I notice.....their smiles. They are all smiling - not just with their mouths. There is something smiling in their eyes. Despite bearing witness to hardships like the Great Depression, World Wars I and II, Civil rights struggles, women's issues, religious persecution, the Korean War and Vietnam - these are just world wide issues. What about their lives personally?
Did the woman in the first picture ever battle cancer? Did her child ever break her heart? Did she battle clinical depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder? What about the second lady? Did she ever suffer under an abusive hand? Was she ever robbed? Was she ever horribly impoverished? Was she ever told that she could never have any children? The third woman, despite her obvious age, still has a shine in her eye, but, being 100, what was her story? Was she separated from family in merciless concentration camps? Did she have to escape or help someone else escape or did she resolve herself each day to survive until, one day, they let her go only to have no place back to which she could go to lay her head? But......they smile.....with their mouths and with their eyes.......because of their ashes.
They lived past the ashes. There were more breaths to breathe, more memories to be made and more gifts to give. They all learned this, mark my words, gal, because we all do, and we all will. We will have our ashes,......and then....they will pass. What will we do with them then? Will we let them poison us with bitterness or will we store them in our bank to draw from them and grow our lives?
Today I think of my friend. Today she lives ashes. She is experiencing loss that is untouched by any other kind. Today she lives what, after much time has passed, others will only see as a wrinkle in her skin or a tremor of her hand or a glimmer of light in her eyes. They will see it all. They will notice. They will decide what they think of her, but there is so much that they won't know, facts they don't have, stories they have not been told. What they will not know is that the skin is wrinkled because it spent 9 months growing a baby while making careful effort to keep the insulin balanced in my friend's blood, that it weathered while it scrubbed the baby's things and dishes and that it burned against food or drink too hot for the baby, that it felt the warmth of the sun the first time this lady took the baby out into its light. What they will not know about the tremoring hand is that it spent hours at the side of a hospital bed stroking the cheek of the baby to wish it to grow strong enough to breath on her own, that it grew strong as it carried the baby everywhere the baby needed it to, that it smoothed the baby's dress for a million pictures, that it tickled the baby to make her laugh. They will not know that the light in her eyes sparked the first time this woman knew the baby was growing inside, that it grew when she saw the baby for the first time and then every time she looked at the baby after that. They also won't know about the wrinkled brow is that it knit together in agony on this day, that it pushed closed eyes that cried many, many, many tears - too many for us to count. They won't know that the hand, today, touched the baby for the last time, that it will hold the last outfit the baby will wear, that it will, soon, curl around the edge of the little box where the baby will lay. They will not know how many tears spilled out of the tender, beautiful, old eyes. They will not know how many hours the eyes spend over the years looking at the baby's things and pictures of the baby wondering what might have been. They will not know about.......the ashes. But they will see something.
The beauty.
When anyone with sight sees the face of my friend, despite the ashes of her life, they will see it. They will see the beauty. They will see the wisdom in the brow, the softness in the old skin. They will see the tremoring hand reach over to hold theirs in a moment when they feel they can't go on. They will see laughter still in the eyes. They will see the light that the little baby lighted that never went out. They will see all of it, and they will know......that it is beauty. It will give them comfort. It will cause them to admire her. It will steel their resolve. It will grow their dreams. It will make them ask questions about from where it came until they face their own ashes, and then they will know. They will know about the beauty. It never goes away. Once it has begun it's transformation in a soul, it never goes away. It is permanent. It does not age. It does not fade. It does not go. It spreads. Though some cannot yet explain it, none can deny its presence. It is the beauty of peace and promise. We are not left alone. We are never without hope. We are given the love of the One Who hurts with our pain, and Who stays in quiet, sad, inarticulatable moments. We are given Him. We are given...............
beauty.
For Madison.
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