Tuesday, 05 May 2009

• Disfigured.

   Almost 30 years ago, I lived in Syracuse, NY. I worked as a dental assistant in a downtown office, and I loved being downtown. On my lunch hour, if I wasn't at the library, I could be found browsing the shops along the downtown streets.

  One of my favorite stores was a pawn shop. I enjoyed looking at antique jewelry and oddities there and even found a ring to complete a set of moonstones I had from my mother. There were items from all over the world there. It was there that I was shocked for the first time by a person's appearance.

  An employee behind the counter had obviously been in a catastrophic accident in which he had been burned over most of his body; perhaps as a lineman he had been electrocuted. He did not wear a mask nor did he try to hide any of his injuries. His face looked like melted wax; his hair was gone except for a few strands, and his mouth and nose were like a smear, and his ears were gone -- no one would have recognised him from before. Only with great effort was I able to keep from gasping and staring. I glanced at him and made some conversation about some of the pieces I saw. When he responded his voice was a hoarse whisper, like some sort of ghostly creature: his voice box had probably been burned as well. His arms ended in ghastly prosthetic hooks.

  I marveled at this man. He was in a job determinedly facing the public in a sales position. I also marveled at his boss, to have risked his shop employing a man who might truly have frightened people away. The more I thought about the whole scene, the more I felt like cheering. There was a rare sort of courage in that place, and not just courage but a rare kind of encouragement. The man who owned that business required me to behave like a compassionate lady, and to discipline myself to see a human being inside this physical wreckage. He required the deformed man to get out there and realise that although his body did not meet the standards of "polite society", he was still a man with arms and legs and a brain inside his head that could be of use to the world.

  Am I a person or am I not?

  Is this a person or is this not?

  In this article (http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/04/face.transplant.patient/index.html#cnnSTCPhoto ) can be read the story of the woman who had the first face transplant in the US.

  What makes a person, a person? Is it their appearance which must meet the acceptable standards of polite society? Or is it the realisation that we are put here for purposes beyond being decorative or at the least, inoffensive to look at? Shall we add up the burdens of what we do not have, or shall we defy despair by arming ourselves with what we do have and getting back on the warpath? In this story the doctors emphasise that this was not about how this lady looks. It is about getting her to a point where she can go back to enjoying the senses she once had-- the ability to breathe and smell the humid summer air through her very own nose, to taste a cup of Starbuck's in the morning, to be able to work on matters outside her own health just for a change. To give instead of always receiving.

  If you are handicapped in any way whether real or imagined, count up what you have. Do you have any way to give something away? For giving something away is one measure of personhood. It isn't about how much you give away. Like the widow giving her mite, it is about how lovingly and willingly and bravely you give. A man with a melted face in a Syracuse shop taught me that in less than fifteen minutes. He gave-- and I think he didn't even know he was giving me a lifelong lesson. What a teacher.

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