my daughter has made a new friend at middle school this year. let's call her beauty.

beauty was born with a strawberry birth mark on her neck. apparently, these types of things can be really dangerous, which i didn't know. she almost died as a very young child, maybe as an infant??? the repeated surgeries to save her life have left her horribly scarred from under her bottom lip all the way down her neck. she looks as tho she's been badly burned. it breaks my daughter's heart.

beauty is a gorgeous girl, inside and out. she's always smiling and laughing and giggling. she walks out with my daughter every day after school, and always has a cheerful word for me, which always perks up my afternoons. she's lively and energetic and so sweet. she is a doll!! she has that light in her eyes that shines from some faraway place, and yet i can see the light starting to fade from teasing and name calling and mean little shits who abuse her, and don't see how wonderful she is because they won't or can't or haven't been taught how to get past the physical scarring.

my daughter and i were laying in her bed last night talking and she started to cry as she relayed to me yet another of the day's events of abuses that beauty had suffered. the details aren't important. let's just say there are some kids at the school that i'd like to have walk in beauty's shoes for one day. one hour would actually do it. (yeah, i really want to smash their faces in too, but i'm trying not to go there) we talked about how we don't even see the scarring anymore when we look at her. we just see a delightfully sweet, warm, funny 12 year old. we see a beautiful loyal friend.

my daughter tells me that beauty doesn't get a lot of positive reinforcement at home. she also has a younger sister who is autistic, and her mom is divorced and just remarried a man that doesn't care for the kids. now i know this is all coming from a 12 year old perspective, but again i say, perception is reality.

i am appalled in this day and age that so many have yet to get past the physical appearance of a person. i've told my daughter and beauty too, that those kids are missing out on a delightful friend because they don't get to know her, and we've talked about all the reasons: being uncomfortable, afraid, scared, embarrassed and a host of others. i'm wondering what parents are teaching their kids about such things. beauty has only one other friend at school, and none outside of school.

it kills me.

they go to the guidance counselor's office sometimes to talk about the name calling and teasing, and the offenders are reprimanded. we have invited beauty to come and hang out, have a slumber party, and my daughter has talked her into singing in her church choir if beauty's mom will agree to it. the choir kids are kind and accepting and generous and gracious.

i know i can't save the world, and i'm not one of those people who has to always have a token cause, but i fear that this child will one day be lost and i don't know what else i can do. i pray that her spirit survives and that she becomes stronger for all the abuse she has suffered. i have a birth defect with my bladder, and i peed my pants every day til i was ten years old, so i know about teasing and abuse and suffering, yet i survived and became sensitive to such things. but i know that the opposite happens too.

could ya'll send some prayers and good wishes beauty's way???