My father always told me that he fell in love with my mother because of her scars.
In his youth, he had dated so many women who had “perfect” faces, but they were cruel and cold.
I had never met her because she died while giving birth to me, but I had seen pictures. Even when she was young, she had slight scars on her cheeks. Not unlike the ones I have on mine.
My dad says I remind him of her.
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Starring at my reflection, I ready didn't get it.
I studied my face and saw nothing extraordinary yet I was on covers of magazines and even scientific journals.
Despite losing my father at 14, the most important person to me, my face was perfect...
My mother was astonished that I didn't suffer the same affliction that all young adults and adults suffer from. That my tears seemed to be like water droplets that rolled down my cheeks, leaving nothing in their wake.
She had seen me cry, even sob uncontrollably after his death. She kept cautioning me that I had to assume the standard plank position in order to minimize scarring. Yet despite her concerns, and my lack of caring HOW I cried, my face was flawless. She tried relentlessly to get me out of bed and begged me to not cry in my pillow, fearful that the tears that soaked my pillow would cause scarring all over instead of the standard tear duct areas.
In her childhood, she lost her mother. In her anguish, she cried in her pillow and still has the marks to prove it.
Only children cried tears that didn't scar you. Concerned that the loss of my father would stunt my growth, she took me to a doctor to check my hormone levels.
The doctor assured her that I was fine, that my hormone levels and my general health was fantastic.
However, he had never seen a case such as mine, where the hormones weren't causing my tears to become acidic, where my tears didn't leave physical scars...
My mother saw this was an advantage and started taking me to modeling gigs. While many models were young, very few if any had perfect skin that wasn't treated by a laser or "some clever product name for bottled happy tears".
Sure, only tears of anguish, pain, and sadness left scars... Sure, tears of gratitude, live and joy helped reverse the scarring of "past" tears... But there seemed to always be residual scarring.
My mother was astonished to see me without a single blemish, especially after my father's death. I was daddy's girl. He was my hero.
Even with her scarring, my father fell in love. He didn't care about her physical beauty because of her good heart. He used to tell me that like most boys, physical beauty was how he determined who he wanted to date. But those women were so shallow and vain. They refused to show or feel emotion out of fear of scaring their faces. They carried bottles of "happy tear product" with them at all times to apply if needed.
I was always considered lucky by my peers. Once they heard I couldn't be scarred they started bullying me to see me cry and stare in awe as the years had no physical effect.
Little did they understand the psychological effects.
The popular girls would get their popular guy friends to go out with me and once when they were close enough to me, they would break up with me. Each one trying to outdo the other to see if I could feel anything that would cause me to scar like they had when their hearts were broken.
People thought I couldn’t feel pain and that I cared about nothing because they couldn't see the visible pain on my face.
