Growing up, I never liked a lot of things about how I looked. I was never as tall, as slim, or as pretty as other girls seemed to be. Eventually, I got some satisfaction from learning that I was a “petite,” which, I think, is a nice way of saying my arms and legs are shorter in proportion to the rest of my body.

Now, my body seems to be growing wider. So maybe they will come up with a polite way of describing middle-age spread.

I used to be able to lose five pounds in two days. Now, two years won’t do it.

However, I am reconciled about the limitations and failures of my body as a middle-aged person in a way that I could not be when I was younger. I have learned to accept my body and be more grateful about my excellent health. I jog around the field and thank God that I am able to run.

I would not have thought like that as a younger person. I would have thought I should be able to run as fast as I could or as long as I could and burn as many calories as I could.

As a young person, I never liked my nose. Forget that I could breathe through it. Unless someone is faced with a health problem, I don’t think girls think in terms of what a blessing it is to be able to breathe. So I am going to share an account of a young girl in Afghanistan who lost her nose. Hearing about her humbled me.

The child got an infection from a sandfly that had bitten her on the nose. The disease, mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, can affect the mucus membranes of the mouth, soft palate and nose. The disease, which is severely and permanently disfiguring, left her without a nose.

So the girl, 9, gets a new nose because a doctor from Texas happens to be at a hospital in Kabul. He and an Afghan surgeon create a new nose for the little girl using skin from her forehead and cartilage from her ear. And I see a picture of her on the CURE Web site and that little girl is smiling as big as day.

I never thought about being happy because I have a nose. But I think I will thank God for my nose as well as anything else that isn’t perfect about me.

I will have to thank him for a long time.

T&D Correspondent Cindy D. Ott can be reached by phone at 803-829-3638.

You must be logged in to comment.