See Me

From “See Me” by Karen Drucker

Robert Anderson & Karen Taylor-Good

 

Marlena heard his voice for the first time behind a curtain in the hospital. She was there giving a massage to a patient and she heard this man speak to his client in the most loving, supportive, compassionate way. As she massaged her own client she began fantasizing about this sweet talking, loving, soothing voice of the man behind the curtain and wondered who he could be and what he looked like. Was he hunky? Single? Did his voice match his looks? Finally at the end of her session she couldn’t contain herself and peeked through the curtain to see him. She gasped in horror and quickly shut the curtain and ran away.

 

Little did she know that day that the man behind the curtain, whose face actually frightened her, would eventually become her husband and change her life.

 

Meet my friend and hero, David Roche.

 

David is an amazing inspirational humorist, keynote speaker, and performer who has transformed the challenges and gifts of living with a facial disfigurement into a compelling message that uplifts and inspires anyone who meets him.

 

I have been inspired by David from the first time I saw him perform. But what is truly amazing is when David and his wife Marlena come into an elementary school to perform his show – you can see the shock and fear in the faces of the children. But what David does at the beginning of his talk is have the kids yell

out: “What happened to your face?” He explains that he was born with a severe facial disfigurement, and goes into great detail telling them all about it. He says to them: “I see my face as a gift, because my shadow side – my difficulty and challenge – is on the outside, where I have been forced to deal with it, and in doing so, have found my beauty inside myself.” You can feel the children listen and soften, and he tells them stories and makes them laugh. They start to see the man and not the face. He gently asks them how they might be judging other kids that might be different from them, and they start to get it. They feel his heart, and by the end of the talk everyone in the room has been transformed.

 

Transformation is what we need more of in our world right now. No matter what you look like, the color of your skin, where you came from, your age, what your religious beliefs are, I truly believe we can use what David is offering: seeing everyone you meet through loving compassionate eyes, feeling their heart, and seeing the face of God in everyone we meet.