Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder?

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder but is that the most important thing?  I have come to realize in the last couple years that beauty is something we should seek internally as well as externally.  Since October 2008 I've been going through reconstruction to "undue" what breast cancer has done to my body.  I thought at first it was just the natural steps to take.  Step one, discover the lump, step two get rid of the lump, step three mastectomy to get rid of the remaining cancer, step four chemotherapy, step five lose my hair, step six finish chemo, step six grow back the hair and then we come to the big step seven reconstruction.  Step seven I thought was just part of the process, that it was something I should do.  I still feel I've made the right decisions but I learned along the way something kind of amazing.  I felt deformed but my family didn't think of me that way.  I just assumed that my family and friends thought of me as poor gal she is disfigured.  Silly huh?  Recently, for reasons that don't need to be mentioned in this blog, a man asked my husband if I had any scars.  He answered yes I had some scars from my lupus outbreak on my arms and I had a couple scars from surgeries when I was younger.  He never mentioned the scars from the mastectomy or the reconstruction.  I sat there and watched him amazed at his answer.  I actually thought he was having one of his forgetful moments. *S*  A couple days ago I had what I hope is my last surgery for reconstruction. It is painful but hopefully it is the last one.  Sitting across from me in the hospital my husband asked me about my vanity to have put myself through so many operations and so much pain.  I was devastated and hurt beyond belief that he would call me vain after all I've been through. I also was speechless.  Yesterday I confronted him about his calling me vain.  He apologized and said it was the wrong choice of words made during a time when he was very tired and stressed from worrying about me.  In other words, it didn't matter to him how I looked after the cancer but he hated seeing me go through so many surgeries and so much pain just for the sake of looks.  But IT did matter to me how I looked.  All of the surgeries, the pain, the scars and everything else mattered to ME.  I asked him about his remark to the man who asked if I had scars.  He said he honestly didn't even think about them as scars.  So in the end the Beholder who seeks the beauty is ME.  But it leaves me wondering about all the other people in the world who seek to make themselves "more beautiful" through unnecessary surgery and quick fixes.  Isn't it a shame that we can't look for our beauty inwards instead of on the surface.  I'm no exception to the rule but I'll try a little harder now to find contentment with who I am.