Day 7: My tattoo and the little girl

I live in a VERY religious community where tattoos are extremely taboo. But, I have one, and I guess I should tell the story about it, since I'm bringing it up.
Years ago, I had surgery on my heel chord and hip. The IDEA was the straighten my leg out for better walking. Well, the surgery was done by a rather incompetent surgeon who's bill was a lot more than his brain was worth, in my opinion (yeah, I'm not bitter! LOL) To make a long story short, the surgery was botched, it screwed up my leg even more, AND left me with a long, disfigured scar on the back of my leg.
With over 30 major surgeries in my history, I'm NO stranger to scars. But this one, though rather small compared to some of the other ones, bothered me more than ANY of them. In fact, it bothered me for years!
So! A few years ago, I decided to have it covered by a tattoo. Something pretty. Something to cover up years of torturous ugliness. Now, I know I'm not much to look at, and a tattoo wasn't going to make me gorgeous all of a sudden. I knew that, and that's not the reason I did it. I did it, because I needed to not be reminded of a very ugly experience in my life. I had a LOT riding on that surgery, and to have it fail so miserably was devastating to me.
The design I chose, and actually created myself, was a dragonfly. I LOVE dragonflies! To me, they're a symbol of peace - and that's EXACTLY what I needed for this situation! It took about an hour for the guy at the shop to do it, and voila! Bad experience replaced with something beautiful (to me, anyway!)
Anyway! I went to the pool (I spend most of my time at the Rec Center or Walmart when I go out. Yeah, I have no life! LOL). I was in the locker room, though, getting ready to go into the pool, and a little girl of about 8 or 9 stopped me.
"I LOVE your tattoo! It's SO pretty!" she said.
Wow! To be honest, I was speechless! Little kids that age are typically staring at me like I'm some kind of freak. Little kids that age are typically shy and don't ever say a WORD to me, but rather hide behind the legs of their parents (who are doing everything in their power to make it look like their kid's not staring! LOL)
But this little girl was different. She wasn't looking at my crutches, or the way I walked. She wasn't caring that I was different from her. All she was interested in was my 'pretty tattoo' - and that really made ME feel pretty!
To the parents of that little girl - if you ever read this, THANK YOU! Thank you for teaching your child to look for the BEAUTY in others, and not be so caught up in the differences. Words can't express how much it's appreciated!!