What makes a woman, a woman? Is it her beauty? Then what is beauty?
Some men like soft features, an elfin-like waif with fine bones. Other men like a muscular, athletic, healthy-looking female. Some cultures have worshipped robust, full-figured females, the ones with large hips, full breasts and bellies, in hopes of having many children, ensuring their way of life for generations to come. Is it her breasts? So what happens when time and motherhood ravish this beauty, or disease takes them? So is it fertility? Then why do so many men stay in love with their women past the child-bearing years? How about when these ladies no longer have a uterus because of a “routine” hysterectomy? Is it taut glowing skin? What about when wrinkles appear?
Is it blue eyes like a summer sky, brown eyes like fertile earth, green eyes like a lush meadow? What if the woman has cataracts or no eyes at all; and what about the old men who likewise cannot see, yet love their women dearly? Is it the amount of children she bears or the acts of kindness she does for the people around her? What if she is childless, yet wherever she walks, miracles follow? Dear Mother Theresa never carried a baby in her belly, but she carried many of God’s children in her heart.
(Excerpt from the book "A Sideshow Journey" by Liesa Swejkoski copyright 2012)
