Faces of Strangers

From behind, which is how I first see her, she looks like any teenage girl. Dressed in pink fuzzy pajama pants with a striped hooded sweater, her hair curled up into a casual loose bun. She is the epitome of adolescent girl. But her face, oh my god, her face. She hears my footsteps approaching from behind her and turns toward me. I can only hope that my own face does not reveal the shock at what I see when she turns, because the truth is, I’m ill prepared and horrified.

It is a ravaged face of 40. A skin that has seen too many harsh winters. Eyes that are nothing more than portals into a shriveled dark hole that smells of putrefying memories. A mouth whose only and rare smiles are bitter. Her features are chapped, blotchy and abnormally swollen. All the pain of her life that might have made her young face look this way curls into my stomach, delivering a cold hard punch.

I am reminded of the faces of so many models in fashion magazines. Nearly pre-pubescent looking girls made up to look strung out. That’s fashion. Only there is no makeup on this girl’s face, and this is no glossy ad. This is real life run hard, and the only thing it makes me want to buy is a hot cup of coffee so I can stuff it into her chapped fingers and pray that it might contain some magic that will bring her soul back to her.

The thoughts all mothers think begin to rise up.

I want to protect this girl from more pain. I want to protect my own daughter from girls like her. I want to take her home and let her get a warm meal and a warm bed. I am grateful that my own daughter’s face, as angry as it can get, has never ever come close to looking like this. I want to find all the people that did this to her and make them pay. I want to run home and tell my daughter how very much I love her. I want to take her pain into myself and relieve her of it just long enough to show her a path out. I want to buy her a coffee.

I can’t. I don’t. My own children are waiting for me, waiting for their orange juice and milk. I know it’s not fair.