When I was at the worst of this disease, eosinophilic esophagitis,  barely able to pick up my sack of bones to exert myself, she would look at me and say, “mommy you are beautiful”. When I would look in the mirror in disgust as I examined the skin pulling around my inflamed veins as the side effect of medication clashed against the dramatic loss of my body fat, she would whisper,”mommy, you are beautiful”. I’d sob in the bathtub in despair from hunger and sorrow over the bones jutting out from my skin, lymph nodes swollen and obvious, skin wrinkled and thirsty. She would sneak in and look at me and say, “mommy, you are beautiful”. When every last shred of my identity being in my looks was shattered by disease, and I had to search hard to find things in my character that were beautiful and felt like death was imminent and that I had failed at life miserably, she would say, “you’re the best mommy in the world”. And I realized, yes I realize, that all this time I put so much worth in my outside, in what other’s think, in attractiveness, and not enough into what the little eyes and little hearts around me were soaking in. Cause see, my baby, she was seeing what I couldn’t see. She was seeing my strength. She was seeing my smile through the pain and suffering. She was seeing faith. She was seeing my love. She was seeing my grace. She was seeing my humility in my failures. She saw that I wouldn’t give up. She was looking at me through the eyes of purity and innocence. She was looking at me through the eyes of God.