Sarah’s story teaches that we sick must make peace with our bodies, no matter how uneasy and regardless of how they torment us. Sarah hates the body in which she must live. That container has betrayed her for a lifetime, offering little but physical and emotional pain. Instead of quietly simmering, Sarah expresses elegant contempt for the damaged body in which she is locked.
The toll for Sarah has been heavy because subtle disfigurement, weight gain, and even slightly distorted facial features are not acceptable for women in a culture of narcissism. In a world with such narrow standards of beauty, those who so clearly do not conform are seen as untouchable.
Sarah is young, yet she controls anger with more equanimity than this middle-aged man can muster. High emotion does not get the best of her, yet her feelings are undeniably strong. How she negotiates the wake of disappointment as she plows ahead speaks volumes about living with grace and beauty from within.
Sarah was the first patient selected for this book. I had lived my own edition of her story and known embarrassment and shame. I needed to know how another gets by. With Sarah, I was part voyeur, part student. I watched as she saw her body through the eyes of others. She does not let go of the comparison contest she cannot win. Yet somehow she is able to rise above the hurt.
Her perspective comes from understanding the world around her. As a social worker, she knows that poverty and illness have much in common and that so many of us live in pain. There is no hierarchy of suffering, no sense that anyone’s journey is harder than another’s. In the end, there is only one life, and hurt will not stop Sarah from living it well.