Do You See ME—or My Body?

It's one of those nights. 1:35am, and I can't sleep. So just got up put on a pork roast in the crockpot, laid out frozen blue berries for a cobbler. 3:35a still awake trying to watch Bonanza. Lol.

But my mind is still wandering out there. Thinking of my exercising class that my spouse and I do twice a week. The instructors know of my double mastectomy (no big deal to me), but one day I caught two male instructors watching me as I was exercising, and I wondered what they were thinking—me as a flat-chested woman (I have prosthesis, but I save those when I go dancing, lol).

But I just thought, "Do you see me or my body?" If you see me, no big deal. But if you see my body only, then you will never see what this body has been through: the pain, struggles, the embarrassment of no breasts. And then I think you will never see the courage, the self-acceptance, an overcomer, a much stronger person.

Their loss—my gain. I'm a survivor and proud of it.

—Written by Contributor Bernice Feicht

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