I saw the car just before it hit me.
I seemed to float. Then the darkness smashed my senses.
I came to in an ambulance. Opening my eyes, I could see only shreds of light through my bandaged, swollen eyelids. I didn't know it then, but small particles of gravel and dirt were embedded on my fifteen-year old face. As I tried to touch it, someone tenderly pressed my arm down and whispered, "Lie still."
A wailing siren trailed distantly somewhere, and I slipped into unconsciousness. My last thoughts were a desperate prayer…
"Dear, God… not my face… please…"
Like many teenage girls, I found much of my identity in my appearance. A lot of people said that I, Tsubaki Andou, looked a lot like my mom, Misaki Harada-Andou. Mom was really beautiful, and I managed to inherit her fair skin, long, pink hair, and strawberry-colored orbs. Some people even said that I was the exact replica of her. As you can see, adolescence revolved around my outside image. Being pretty meant that I had lots of dates and a wide circle of friends – even if my father said otherwise.
My father, Tsubasa Andou, doted on me. He had three sons, but only one daughter. I remember one Sunday in particular. As we got out of the car at the church, my brothers – a scruffy twosome in their baggy clothes – ran ahead. Mom had stayed home with the sick baby.
I was gathering my small purse, church school papers, and Bible. Dad opened the door. I looked up at him, convinced in my seven-year old heart that he was more handsome and smelled better than any daddy anywhere – even uncle Natsume and uncle Ruka cannot compare to him.
He extended his hand to me with a twinkle in his eye and said, "A hand, my lady?" Then he swept me up into his arms with a grin on his face and told me how pretty I was. "No father has ever loved a little girl more than I love you," he said.
In my child's heart, which didn't really understand a father's love, I thought that it was my pretty dress and face he loved.
A few weeks before the accident, I had won first place in a local pageant, making me the festival queen. Dad didn't say much. He just stood beside me with his arm over my shoulders, beaming with pride. Once more, I was his pretty girl, and I basked in the warmth of his love and acceptance.
About this time, I made a personal commitment to Christ. In the midst of student council, honor society, pageants, and parades, I was beginning a relationship with God.
In the hours immediately after my accident, I drifted in and out of consciousness. Whenever my mind cleared slightly, I wondered about my face. I was bleeding internally and had a severe concussion, but it never occurred to me that my concern with appearance was disproportionate.
The next morning, although I couldn't open my eyes more than a slit, I asked the nurse for a mirror.
"You just concern yourself with getting well, young lady," she said, not looking at my face as she took my blood pressure.
Her refusal to give me a mirror only fueled irrational determination. If she wouldn't give me a mirror, I reasoned, it must be worse than I imagined. My face felt tight and itchy. It burned sometimes and ached sometimes. I didn't touch it, though, because my doctor told me that it might cause infection.
My parents also battled to keep mirrors away. As my body healed internally and strength returned, I became increasingly difficult.
At one point, for the first time in less than an hour, I pleaded for a mirror. Five days since the accident.
Angry and beaten down, Dad snapped, "Don't ask again! I said no and that's it!"
I wish I could offer an excuse for what I said. I propped myself on my elbows, and through lips that could barely move, I hissed, "You don't love me. Now that I'm not pretty anymore, you just don't love me!"
Dad looked as if someone had knocked the life out of him. He slumped into a chair and put his head in his hands. My mother walked over and put her hand on his shoulder as he tried to control his tears. I collapsed against the pillows.
I didn't ask my parents for a mirror again. Instead, I waited until someone from housekeeping was straightening my room the next morning.
My curtain was drawn as if I were taking a sponge bath. "Could you get me a mirror, please?" I asked. "I must have mislaid mine."
After a little searching, she found one and discreetly handed it to me around the curtain.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. An image that resembled a giant scraped knee, oozing and bright pink, looked out at me. My eyes and lips were crusted and swollen. Hardly a patch of skin, ear-to-ear, had escaped the trauma.
My father arrived a little later with magazines and homework tucked under his arm. He found me staring into the mirror. Prying my fingers one by one from the mirror, he said, "It isn't important. This doesn't change anything that matters. No one will love you less."
Finally he pulled the mirror away and tossed it into a chair. He sat on the edge of my bed, took me in his arms, and held me for a long time.
"I know what you think," he said.
"You couldn't," I mumbled, turning away and staring out the window.
"You're wrong," he said, ignoring my self pity. "This will not change anything," he repeated. He put his hand on my arm, running it over and IV line. "The people who love you have seen you at your worst, you know."
"Right, seen me with rollers or with cold cream – not with my face ripped off!"
"Let's talk about me then," he countered. "I love you. Nothing will ever change that because it's you I love, not your outside. I've changed your diapers and watched your skin blister with chicken pox. I've wiped up your bloody noses and held your head while you threw up in the toilet. I've loved you when you weren't pretty."
He hesitated. "Yesterday you were ugly – not because of your skin, but because you behaved ugly. But I'm here today, and I'll be here tomorrow. Fathers don't stop loving their children, no matter what life takes. You will be blessed if life only takes your face."
I turned to my father, feeling it was all words, the right words, spoken out of duty – polite lies.
"Look at me then, Daddy," I said. "Look at me and tell me you love me."
I will never forget what happened next. As he looked into my battered face, his eyes filled with tears. Slowly, he leaned toward me, and with his eyes open, he gently kissed my scabbed, oozing lips.
It was the kiss that tucked me in every night of my young life, the kiss that warmed each morning.
Many years have passed. All that remains of my accident is a tiny indentation just above one eyebrow. But my father's kiss, and what it taught me about love, will never leave my lips.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything. They belong to the rightful owners.
I was inspired by the story "Through A Father's Eyes" by Lonni Collins (which appeared on the book Stories for the Extreme Teen's Heart - Celebrating Teens Who Are Saying Yes To God). I did some minor changes so that it would fit the character's... well, character.
And, YES, I am a Christian :)