One of my favorite short stories comes from a man named Moses. Moses was not a handsome man. He was short and he also had a hunched back. When he met a beautiful young lady named Frumtje, Moses fell madly in love, but Frumtje was repulsed by his appearance and his hunched back.
Finally getting the courage to talk to her, Moses asked, “Do you believe that all marriages are made in heaven?” When she said yes, Moses said, “In heaven at the birth of each boy, the Lord announces which girl he will marry. When I was born, my future bride was pointed out to me. Then the Lord said, ‘But your wife will be humpbacked.’
Right then and there I called out, ‘Oh Lord, a humpbacked woman would be a tragedy. Please, Lord, let her be beautiful and give me the hump.” Frumtje became his devoted wife. Can you imagine a gesture more beautiful than this?
Not only was Moses a hunchback, he was a smooth talker as well. No wonder Frumtje fell in love with him. He had an inner beauty.
I was recently reminded of this story as I read The Little Locksmith. In this story a young girl is fighting Pott’s disease where becoming a hunchback is a side effect so her family kept her bedridden from the age of 5 to the age of 15 to try to prevent the inevitable. Ten years in bed. Flat on her back.
When I originally suggested this novel of nonfiction for my book club I thought it would be a tragic story of her bedridden life and how much she suffered. I was so wrong. Katherine Butler Hathaway had a writing style to be admired. You want to read her words slowly, absorbing every phrase and quote.
My favorite is her description of a good friend being a “gardener of human beings.” She felt that the most difficult “human” plants are all in the wrong places suffering drought or heat or dampness, whereas if a noticing, intuitive hand of a friend could only move among them, they might all flourish as they were meant to do. Her friend never saw her delicate health or her disfigurement she only spoke of her beauty and of her talents.
Wouldn’t this be the greatest of compliments, to be called a gardener of human beings and to help people discover their own inner beauty? To Katharine there was nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend.
How often do we see the darkness of those around us when we could instead place our focus on the positive? To build up and encourage one another and support each other’s talents, those apparent and those kept well hidden. Sometimes we have to look beyond the “hunchback” to see the beauty within.
Inner beauty is a kind of
radiance. You can see the
people who possess a true
inner beauty, their eyes are a
little brighter, their skin a little
more dewy. They vibrate at a
different frequency.
Cameron Diaz
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