Living with Imperfections

LeRoy Walls, age 2. 

Photo by

  
Margaret Walls  

Written by 
LeRoy Walls 
CEO 

"What happened to your lip?" asked a curious young friend of one of my grandchildren. Over the years I’ve been asked this same question dozens of times. My answer was typical of past ones as I said, "When I was born I had an open space in my upper lip that had to be filled in and stitched up which left the scar that you see."

At age 53 this question was taken in stride. When I was younger it always embarrassed me though I tried to answer matter-of-factly so it appeared not to bother me. In reality it did concern me that the slight mark that made me different had been noticed.

I was born in late 1944 with the birth defect of a "cleft lip" or what is commonly called a "harelip" for the shape of a hare or rabbit’s lip. The opening in the lip is usually closed after a few months and the baby teeth and permanent teeth often grow in a little crooked. With modern medical and dental technology, available even in 1945, both of these problems can be, and in my case were, readily corrected.

Mom often quoted the old saying to all five of her kids that sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never harm you. Maybe my brothers and sisters believed that but I didn’t and I still wonder if Mom really believed!

I wanted to be "thick-skinned" so that people’s comments about my "harelip" or "buck teeth" wouldn’t bother me--but they often did. Rarely were the remarks really hateful. They were usually just in the form of questions or in playful teasing.

Like most kids who find an excuse to be self-conscious about something--I used my little scar as the reason to be shy and less outgoing. But I did like myself and thought of myself as someone with a good bit of common sense and a great future.

Perhaps I compensated for my shyness and cleft lip by trying harder to fit in at school, to take more chances, to be a better than average athlete and later to work hard in my job. Maybe it even caused my parents to work harder so that their son would be reasonably well dressed and never feel poor--even though our family, like most in our area, was poor by national standards. Did these approaches used by my parents and by me actually give an advantage rather than a disadvantage? Whatever the answer, I’ve certainly had more than my fair share of life’s blessings.

In looking back I’m quite certain that my harelip was probably more noticeable to me than to most others around me. Quite often kids and even adults find something about themselves to find fault with--maybe the color of their hair, their nose, ears, chin or in my case the upper lip. Some might even feel cursed because of a feature that marks their birth or uniquely identifies them.

With age and maturity I realize that these distinguishing features help make us who we are. The old saying that problems are as big as we make them is definitely true from my experience.

As a teenager it seems that nothing is as important as how we look - even a few pimples can put us in a slump. Please know that over the long term how we look will never be as important as how we act - our character will always be of greater importance than any of our physical attributes.

I’ve always been treated as a complete and real person and I believe one of the reasons is that some imperfections actually make us more, rather than less, acceptable and therefore more approachable.

We’ve all seen the handsome athletic boy or the very attractive girl who ended up doing far more stumbling than succeeding. Perhaps this was due to their trying to live up to some Don Juan or Marilyn Monroe image but more likely due to the high expectations placed on them by their friends and family.

I hope that with my great advantage of having some imperfections worn openly I can be tolerated for having many normal problems including being a poor listener and having a larger than life ego. Living with imperfections in others and ourselves is something we must learn to accept because it is a reality of life.

Looking back at myself and others in our younger years, we seemed to feel that as long as we never admitted we were wrong or said we were sorry, people would think of us as bigger persons. In my opinion -- just the opposite is true. Most people that admit their mistakes seem to be more readily accepted. I now believe we will never be considered to be the perfect person unless we occasionally show and admit our imperfections.

Osceola McCarty the southern woman who spent her life washing clothes for others and then gave away her entire life savings for needy kids’ college scholarships, says:

There’s a lot of talk about self-esteem these days. It seems pretty basic for me. If you want to feel proud of yourself, you’ve got to do things you can be proud of. Feelings follow actions.

Based on Ms. McCarthy’s comments and my experience, it seems that we often place too much emphasis on how others look at us and not enough on how we look at ourselves. Perhaps the best way to overcome problems is by doing something useful.
Written February 1998

12/31/1999