For years, this was my story. Um. I did get off the couch occasionally to take care of some minor responsibilities not related to acne, per se, such as teaching writing skills to teenagers.

I was teaching 187 teenagers at the time. I passed 1,008 faces in the hallways on any given day. This gave me the appropriate grounds to conduct my studies. Actually, to be precise, it wasn’t the faces I was looking out for, but those pimples. Luckily for me, I found them easily, scattered on cheeks and chins everywhere! I even found some on noses. (Fear not — I found those without looking too nosy.)

But never did I find too many peppering one face.

Until one day, I spotted her. Her single face proffered a whole pack of them. Hundreds. She wore them proudly! And nothing about her conveyed that pimples made her anything but pretty. Why, by her overall air, she made others want to pay to get acne like hers.

“There are others who suffer from this,” I told Sury that night, pointing out to her how very extremely normal it was to have such facial hiccups.

“Oh,” Sury said.

I went on. “I met your teacher. You know, my friend Leah Fohlger? She says you’re a sweetie, a cut above the rest. A graceful, genuine queen.”

“She probably says that about everyone.”

“I don’t know,” I said. Admittedly, my words had been somewhat exaggerated.

“Ma! I have no grace. I can’t even dance,” she pointed out matter-of-factly.

“You have a dancer in you somewhere.” I told her about when she was two and three and seven — the adorable dances she’d make up on beds, counters, and chairs everywhere. But she didn’t take the words to heart, and I knew the pimples on her face were tiny parasites, pulling the living confidence out of her.

That night, Ruchel told me, “The best therapy for your girls is making sure they feel like they look gorgeous, Ella, I’m telling you!”

But I wasn’t sure how I could make sure.

When I went to school the next day, I looked out for the proud pimple-faced student. For the rest of the year, I answered all of her questions, wrote long complimentary comments on her works, and didn’t stop her if she spoke to others during class.

But the splotches on Sury’s face remained unmoved by my kind gestures. As time lengthened, the acne overstayed their visit, and it seemed to me that they were tattooed on her cheeks forever.

Years passed. Sury left school and began to build a home of her own.

When Baby Bentzy was born and visited with Mommy Sury, I was too busy to notice. When he was sleeping, feeding, and gurgling, I was too enthralled to see. And when he was sitting, crawling, and clapping, I was too excited to care.

Until, one day, I spotted it.

Sury held her Bentzy, one flawless face beside another. Soft and clear, as unmarred as a pincushion that had lost all its pinheads.

“Sury!” I said with a congratulatory grin. “Your face is clear!”

“Yes. Baruch Hashem.” She smiled. “Babies can do what mommies can’t. We tried so many things to make them go away. Remember?”

“Creams and facials?”

“Even laser at $500 a session.”

“And the meds from the dermatologist—”

“That made me nauseous.”

“And there were lots of possible side effects.”

“Yeah. You know, most people used it anyway, even if there were some possible side effects. That’s why nobody in my school looked like me,” Sury commented, still cheek to cheek with Bentzy.

“Sorry,” I said. I held her gaze.

“It’s fine. Look. He has one eye that is smaller than the other,” Sury was saying. “And his left ear is a bit crumpled.” She laid him on the carpeted floor and crouched down to inspect his eyes and ears. “See?”

I tried. “I’m blinded by my lopsided Bobby perspective,” I said, straining. “All I see is his smile.” Honestly. How could she make up these rumors about my einekel?

“It’s not really bad. It’s the kind of thing you might realize when you look at him the first time. But I never saw it. Ever. The doctor pointed it out to me.”

“That’s right,” I said. “We don’t see these little details in people. We know them for who and what they are.”

Sury was still on the carpet, looking at her Bentzy proudly. “Yeah.”

“It’s like acne. Close friends and family don’t see it. Do they? Did they?”

“No,” Sury admitted. “A person is, like, who they are. Overall.”

“Yummydoodle doo!” I cooed to Bentzy. Adorable. Perfectly formed. Just so “Bentzy.”

“People are, like, who they are,” Sury repeated, and stood up.

“Yeah. Overall,” I echoed.

I felt the guilt that had been pinching my heart loosen. And from deep beneath the ground of my skin, in a subterranean plain, I saw a forest of love where not one tree grew alone.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 959)