ugly.

Could you imagine what your life would be like if you were ugly? I don't mean unattractive. I am not talking about beautiful or not beautiful, I am talking about the physically hideous, the tragically morbid. If people cringed at the sight of you, if they were scared of you, made the effort to stay away from you...would you be able to face the world?

I was watching the most recent episode of Grey's Anatomy the other day. The medical case was of a guy who was missing 77% of his face, including his nose and his lips. He was horrible to look at, but I couldn't look away. He was surprised by his online friends, who he had been chatting with for over a year. They came to wish him luck before his surgery to get a new face. He freaked out, and didn't want them to see him like that. They were supposed to see him with his new face.

I'll be honest with you, I cried during this episode. I picture his face in my mind now. I imagine living like that, being afraid to step out of the house, being afraid to even look in the mirror. How do you face the world when you're faceless? You couldn't feel his pain but you could definitely see it... by your own inability to look away, your need to stare to see if it's real. Or maybe you do need to look away, because it is just so grotesque that you can't bear to believe it. Either way his existence is something that you have never considered. You could never imagine being in his shoes, and you would never want to.

But when his friends came back...when they looked him straight in the eye and said "I see you"...When they leaned in and kissed the only part of his cheek that wasn't bloody flesh... I know this is television, but I sincerely hope that there are people like that in this world. I hope that there are people with so much compassion, so much sympathy in their hearts, that they can look beyond the ugly and see the beautiful.

We pass these people on the street every day. The smelly homeless man, sleeping in the corner. The "wack-job" talking to himself on the T. People who are damaged: physically, emotionally, mentally. We look at them and we judge. It's in our nature, no matter how bad we feel for them, that is what we see. If you were to stumble upon a man missing over half his face, how would you react? How much more would you affect his life if you stopped to look into his eyes, his heart, and see the person within?