Revelations Within Tara's Eyes

She was 22years old when she was diagnosed with leukemia
She started loosing form
Her hair started falling off but everyday my sister Tara will stand in front on the mirror and admire her baldness. She will smile at the protruding veins on her face and tell me how beautiful they are.
She was not beautiful in my sight but she was beautiful in her sight and I had to begin to see  her like that.
Then on the night of her transition, my sister Tara willed her mirror to me and she said "If you do not remember me for anything, you'd at least remember that I looked into this mirror everyday and called myself beautiful even when I was most un-beautiful" And then I realized that there are so many things that beauty is not.

Beauty is not a pose
It is not that piercing on the nose,
Well painted lips, red  like rose
Beauty is not the colour of your face, it's not a race or a competition of braids and hair lace.

Beauty,
Is more than  the combination of shape or form and size,
Beauty is a light in the heart
It is illumination, that un-doubting sense of possession that gives you the freedom to be you and gives me the freedom to be me.

Beauty is not about how big your breasts are but how much milk of compassion it can carry
Its is not how broad your chest is but how much of humanity it can condone.
Giving hope to this soul and to that soul.

Beauty is not you after the artist has finished the witchcraft he calls makeover on you.
Beauty is you waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror at your sunburn, the lines life gifted you, the bow legs you are not afraid to show, the stunted hair you are not afraid to comb. Defending your smile even when others think it is a crime.

Beauty are the little things that make you Mary or Lizzy or David or even Daisy.
For most of the things we try to change about ourselves are the things that make us who we really are.

So I don't know what you let her call you or what you let him call you or what you let them call you but I call me beautiful.
I am beautiful, not because my face is black or my lips are pink but because each time I stare into the mirror Tara gave to me, I love and accept what I see.

                                                                                           Written By Farida Adamu