Is real beauty on the outside or the inside?

Inside

1 of 175

by Suzanna Billingsley Frost

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When I was seven my brother was badly burned in an accident. I spent the next year in the burn hospital while my brother slowly recovered. I was surrounded daily by kids that had been burned so badly they were left disfigured. Many didn't have hair, facial features, ears, fingers, and were scared so badly they didn't resemble their former selves.

As horrific as the ordeal was on my family, I learned possibly the most important lesson of my life, how to see people from the inside out, and not from the outside in. During my days at the hospital I would often wonder, that when these kids are released from the hospital and sent back out into the real world, would others look past their outer appearance to see how truly beautiful they were, or would others limit their judgments solely by what a person looks like on the outside.

By the time I was seventeen, that very question had been answered. I watched the expressions on other peoples faces when they looked at my brother, and that was all they could see, was how he looked on the outside. Penny was a girl who went to my school who had also been badly burned. She had the most beautiful almond eyes, a smile that could light up a room, and a laugh as that of an angel. Unfortunately many of my peers were unable to see these wonderful things about her, because as they pointed out she was grotesque. I listened, carefully taking notes of those who were crude towards her appearance.

Yet there I was on the opposite side of the fence, winning best senior picture, etc., in school, and not by my choice. Being told I looked like a movie star, or I could be the next Miss America, or a model, none of which I cared, nor desired to be. But what hurt the most from these compliments, was that my brother, nor Penny, as with the kids from the burn hospital would ever hear these words spoken to them by others. But now in an ironic twist I too was being judged on my outer appearance and nothing more. Something that deeply bothered me. Now I stood as the same with my brother and Penny with no one taking the time to look past the outside to find the treasure of what was on the inside.

Whenever the boys who had made terrible comments about Penny would ask me out, I would tell them, "No", and nothing more. They couldn't understand why I wouldn't go out with them, because most girls would have done anything for these boys to notice them. They would inquire for an answer of why I wouldn't go out with them, but I never gave them an answer. For me they needed to figure that one out for themselves.

A beauty contest was coming up and Penny asked me if I was going to enter into the pageant. I Looked her square in the eyes and told her, "Penny, you and I don't need a beauty contest to prove ourselves to anyone". The smile on her face was the only crown I ever needed to wear.

I was at the community pool with my brother one summer standing in line awaiting my turn for the diving board. My brother was standing on the diving when two boys in front of me began making rude and mean remarks about my brother to each other. Regretfully at the moment I hated myself for not saying anything in his defense.

Once again in line and my brother standing on the diving board, the two boys began asking me which one of them I would be most interested in going out on a date with. Without a missing a beat, I pointed to my brother on the diving board and said, "I'm with him". The looks on their faces was all the satisfaction I needed to redeem myself for not defending my brother. The two boys were speechless and dumbfounded not knowing the boy on the diving board was my brother, nor did I tell them otherwise. I didn't lie that day, because I was at the pool with my brother. But the two boys took my statement to mean something different, and I let them.

A woman I knew could only define the worth and value of others by their outer appearance. In her attempt to change the world for the good of humanity, she would point her finger in my face telling me she was going to take me down to a beauty salon and get my hair cut, colored, and styled. I never said a word while she made a fool of herself. because what she didn't know, was that my hair grows extremely long in a short period of time. When it reaches 28 inches long I cut it at my nape and donate my hair to Locks of Love. This is a foundation that makes wigs, then donates the wigs to kids who have been burned, have cancer, or other illnesses that causes them to lose their hair, who would other wise not be able to afford a wig made from real human hair. Human hair wigs are the best and last the longest, but are very expensive.

My point to telling you all this, is that real beauty comes from the inside and it can be found nowhere else . And outer beauty is meaningless, pointless, and a waste if there is no inner beauty. From this story I hope others will be very cautious in viewing beauty as solely what's on the outside, because one never knows who might be watching and listening, because that moment ,could come back on them in making an ass of them.

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