52 Beautiful Stories
Highlight the extraordinary in ordinary women's stories. Read the About page and contact 52beautifulstories@gmail.com.The Widow’s Might
What makes a woman beautiful?
When I was a young girl I hoped to be a fashion model one day, so I used a little of my saved allowance to buy a book that described the parameters of model-perfect beauty. The ideal distance between hairline and eyebrows, eyebrows and tip of the nose, tip of the nose and tip of the chin were prescribed, along with the measurements of just about every body part a woman has. I read and re-read the book and compared myself to the ideal, obsessing over every insignificant difference between my own looks and the unusual archetype. I idolized Janice Dickinson, Beverly Johnson, and Cheryl Tiegs.
I think most men and women in our youth thought of beauty as something you’re born with or not, and something that can be enhanced with expensive potions and makeup. The great hope for our souls is that we get over that notion at some point. Not that there’s anything wrong with looking good. It’s just that real beauty–beauty that lasts forever–is so much better than looks.
What I’m searching for with 52 Beautiful Stories, is a collection of descriptions of truly beautiful women, and what makes a woman beautiful.
My Twitter friend Cindy Grace wrote me a few months ago to share the story of her friend Teresa.
I have a friend named Teresa Yaak. She is a widow who moved here from the Sudan about 9 years ago. She is rearing 3 boys, getting a college education and working a third shift housekeeping job at the local hospital.
In her “spare” time, she has taken classes and done all the leg work to form a non-profit organization called Hope for Women and Children of Southern Sudan. She has just received her approval from the IRS for donations to her organization to be tax deductible and will soon start raising funds to build a medical/education center for the women living in Bor, Sudan.
This woman lives a life that most of us would consider difficult by American standards, yet she has suffered so much in her life in Sudan that she feels completely blessed and wants to help those who weren’t fortunate enough to escape her war-torn country. In addition to losing her husband, she lost her parents and can only assume they have been murdered and buried in a mass grave near the village where she grew up. She also lost a baby prior to leaving the Sudan. Those are just the stories I know…there are others I’m sure.
Anyway, I like to refer to her strength as “The Widow’s Might” because even though she has but a little, she has given it all back to God.
The website for her organization is www.hwcss.org. The website is very “sparse” at this point but along with another volunteer who does web design, we will begin to flesh it out as Teresa’s work unfolds.
Thanks for asking about beautiful women. Teresa is the most beautiful woman I know.
This is what Teresa had to say about losing her husband to the war in Sudan, in a piece she wrote for Cindy Grace’s “Fuzzy Red Robe” blog:
“I didn’t see his body, I don’t know where he die or he been beaten. I just get message from people who saw him. When I get message, it says your husband dies. My brain can’t think of anything. My heart was dancing and I look up and down. I ask God to be my husband, Father, Mother, brother, sisters. God today show me how I can take care of them, how to raise these kids and where.”
From Teresa’s website, “Hope for Women & Children of Southern Sudan” (www.hwcss.org), she shares a small piece of her story and motivation:
Teresa endured much while living in the Sudan. Poverty, thirst, hunger, the murder of family members and homelessness. Teresa was not alone in the hardships she endured; many in Southern Sudan have suffered these atrocities.
Teresa considers herself very blessed because she made it to America. She has a good job and a home and three happy healthy boys. She also has the opportunity to get an education and takes college classes as her busy schedule allows.
Teresa is also very aware that there are vast numbers of women and children back in her native Sudan that are still enduring these hardships so she determined several years ago to do what she could to help.
With the help of friends, Teresa has established Hope for Women and Children of Southern Sudan to raise money to build a clinic and education facility in Bor, South Sudan and to supply these women and children with the most basic of necessities like clothes.
Teresa’s mission is to provide healthcare and classes to these disenfranchised women so that they can take better care of their families.
Here’s my question to you, the reader: Can you tell me what makes Teresa Yaak beautiful?
Teresa Yaak
First Stories
Dorothy and Diane Lefkovits, December 1960
For good or bad, the longer each of us has the privilege to live, the more we realize how much the first storytellers in our lives have to do with who we become. What did Mom, Dad, or whoever first filled our ears and souls with words, tell us about ourselves and how to look at the world?
One day I will attempt to fully explore in writing what both of my parents planted in my spirit early on through the sparkle in their eyes and the musicality of their voices as they read to me at first every day and night, then less and less often until I was doing it on my own, yet somehow longing for their particular sparkles and notes even as an adult.
For now, above is a treasured photo of Mom and me soon after my fourth birthday, and below is a recent video of Mom that I must have played two dozen times on the first night I heard it, courtesy of my youngest brother, Stephen.
It might seem a cornball gesture, but I couldn’t launch 52 Beautiful Stories without acknowledging the first woman I think of whenever I have a conversation about women who define beauty by their actions and their words.
