Part 2
The surgery took eleven hours.
The doctors removed part of my jaw and rebuilt it with a piece of bone from my leg.
When I woke up, I couldn’t speak. My face was wrapped, swollen, and numb.
There was a tube in my throat, and I couldn’t even ask for a mirror.
I was too scared to open my eyes all the way.
Then I felt a hand on mine.
Raymond.
He leaned down, kissed my forehead, and whispered,
“Hi, beautiful. I’m right here.”
I cried without making a sound. Thirty years of marriage, and he still said it like the first time.
Two days later, Joanna came in.
I watched her face, waiting for the shock. Waiting for her to look away.
She didn’t.
She sat on the edge of my bed, pulled out her phone, and showed me her screen.
It was the photo of me holding my sign.
She had made it her lock screen.
“Every time I look at my phone,” she said, “I remember the bravest woman I know.”
The months after were hard.
Radiation. Speech therapy. Learning to eat again, one spoon at a time.
Some mornings I still didn’t want to look in the mirror.
But last spring, I walked my daughter down the aisle.
My face is different now. One side is lower. There are scars along my neck.
And when I smile, it’s a little crooked.
But I smiled.
In every single photo.
Joanna hung one of them in her new home. She says that crooked smile is her favorite smile in the world.
To everyone who prayed for me that night… thank you.
Your prayers carried me into that operating room. And they carried me back out.
If you believe every scar is a story of survival, please send Marianne a ❤️