Two Decembers

As Natasha wove her way through the busy café, she directed her gaze to the floor, avoiding eye contact with fellow patrons. Once in the bathroom, she locked the door behind her and burst into tears. She recognized her mother’s attempts to help her assimilate back into some sort of life outside of hospitals and therapy. But this. She was not ready for this. Natasha had grown comfortable with her orthopedic and reconstructive team, the physical therapist, and her psychologist, Dr. Morgan. She didn’t mind that they saw what she saw in the mirror. And while the scar certainly looked better than it did eleven months earlier, the red, raised mark slashing across her face was still visible despite concealer. Natasha blotted her face dry with a cloth from the silver tray on the bathroom’s marble vanity. She examined her reflection in the mirror and ran her fingers through her now much shorter hairdo. As she touched up with a little tinted moisturizer and bronzing powder, she caught a glimpse of her profile in the opposite mirror. Looking at Natasha from this angle, no one would be the wiser to her injuries. The plastic surgeon assured her that in time the scar would become less detectable to strangers. But until then the awkward sideways glances of people trying not to look at the mark emblazoned on her face would be hers to bear. Natasha put both hands on the vanity and leaned into her reflection, scrutinizing the steel-blue eyes staring back her. “What’s happened to you?” she muttered. In months of questioning why, how, and when, Natasha’s doctors never wavered in their response. Simply put, Natasha’s mind was protecting her from further trauma. And the details of the accident responsible for her physical injuries would surface through the natural healing process of first the body, then the mind. Natasha could rattle the words off in her sleep and had grown to despise the consistent reply. While her physical recovery continued to exceed everyone’s expectations, the last few years of Natasha’s life eluded her. Dr. Morgan advised the longer she remained in a controlled bubble, the longer her mind would practice self-preservation and hold tightly to the answers she so desperately sought. Natasha scrutinized the woman intently gazing back at her. Although many hurdles had been cleared in the last eleven months, she had to trust that situations like today were a part of God’s plan. She took a deep inhale and practiced a smile in the mirror. It would have to do. Weaving her way back through the restaurant, Natasha repeated silently, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened … Take my yoke upon you and learn from me … for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Natasha perceived that taking up Jesus’s yoke meant seeing her situation through His perspective, and as she neared the table once again, she acknowledged the nervous smile on her mother’s face.