FACES

David M. Flowers

I think we all wear different faces during our daily lives, which reflect the changing roles we play at different points in time. We are, variously, parents, nurses, homemakers, office staff, factory workers, physicians, and more in our interactions with other people, many times changing our expressions and demeanor in mere seconds to accommodate new thoughts or the play of emotions.

Nonetheless, there is a reassuring familiarity to our overall physical appearance that greets us each morning from the bathroom mirror. I think this solidity, this sameness, is an important bedrock which allows us to confront the uncertainties of each day’s adventures.

Over long periods our appearance does begin to alter, and it is with a sense of wonderment that we confront the new wrinkles and graying hair that mark the onset of older age. These change are slow, however, and rarely have an impact on day-to-day thoughts. We get up, brush our teeth, comb our hair, and move on with the day’s activities, having checked our appearance fleetingly, if at all, in the mirror before work.

I, too, have been part of this group—a husband, father, physician falsely reassured by the apparent predictability of daily routine. But then I developed cancer. Along with all the emotional trauma and physical discomfort, the chemotherapy has changed my physical appearance as well as the psychological mask that lies beneath.

As I look back at old photographs of my youth, I am struck by an inordinate excess of hair. When my family watched an old John Travolta movie, the children laughed at the clothes and the hairstyles. Reluctantly my wife and I smiled and nodded: “Yes, we looked like that.” In these photos I am forever marked as a child of the 1970s, in the same ways as the Brady Bunch stylistically remain frozen on their nightly reruns for all eternity. As expected, my youthful face did not display any worries or concerns. The future seemed endless and unbounded. Optimism prevailed. It was an idyllic time. The youthful face.

When I went to medical school, I felt I needed a more mature look. I grew the beard that was to mark me for the next two decades. I remember as a student walking into a patient’s room and being asked if I was there to change the bed. “No” I explained, “ I am the doctor.” By growing a beard I added a few years and, perhaps, fooled a few patients.

Over time, however, that face became my new reality. I became decisive, confident in my responsibilities. I became a husband and then father. Work remained my primary focus. I relished the role of breadwinner.

Every now and then my wife would plead for a little more family time but I explained that I was providing for us with my 80-hour workweek. I developed some new wrinkles and some more gray hair, but each morning my face greeted me in the bathroom with the reassurance that together we could “get the job done.” I was serious but with a veneer of humor because of the good times. My children understood that medicine was important and sometimes required them to take a back seat. They could tell by the look on my face. The serious face.

Cancer dramatically changed my physical appearance as well as my underlying psychological support. Chemotherapy made me completely bald, with loss of eyebrows as well as beard in a matter of weeks. I spent long hours staring at my new reflection in the mirror, trying to find myself behind the stranger who stared back.

My response to the world changed as well. I became somewhat withdrawn and timid, uncertain of which steps to take to get through the day. No longer as confident, I began to depend on my wife to help make decisions. It seemed as if an outer-space creature had taken over my place in the world. Where had my life gone? It was an unsettled time, with the dawning realization that it would remain so forever. It was hard to see below the surface. An alien face.

With remission, I now wear a new face. With gray, curly hair but smooth skin, I am curiously both old and young at the same time. I have emerged a different person from my ordeal. I have decided not to grow back my beard. This is a new era for me; therefore, a new look seems appropriate.

Underneath, my emotional features have also changed. My view of the world is different. I am more patient but less certain. I work part time. I spend more time with my family. I wait for an uncertain future that no longer stretches endlessly before me. And yet, I cannot say I see the end. A waiting face.

As I look at all of my photos, I can see the progression of both inner and outer faces changing together over time: the youthful face of unbounded enthusiasm, the serious face with its underlying confidence, the alien face of uncertainty, and the waiting face forged from patience. But beneath all of this, I believe there is a deeper level still. There is a unity, which binds my selves together through their passage in time, a core being whose face and identity has metamorphosed from the struggles of age but still harkens back to the seeds of my youth.

Throughout my troubles one thing that I have noticed is that my friends and family have always treated me the same. Their love and support have been unwavering, regardless of my appearance. There has been no doubt in their response as to who I am. Perhaps I have been too shallow? I have seen what I appear, but have I missed what I am? I now believe that I have chosen the wrong surface in which to look for my reflection.

In the mirror of my children’s eyes, I see that my true face has remained unchanged.

—David M. Flowers, Telford, Pennsylvania, is a cardiologist on staff at Grand View Hospital in Sellersville, Pennsylvania. He is currently disabled from clinical practice but, as a result, has been able to become a more active father to his three teenage children.