The before & after picture. The before smile shows a smile of a life you’re happy with living. Aware that things can happen in the blink of an eye but kind of oblivious to it too. It’s a picture that has the “it won’t happen to me” mentality. Because you’re healthy & young & you feel like you’re moving in the right direction and getting stopped in your tracks seems highly unlikely. The after is a smile of living after surviving. Sometimes it’s surviving something physical that everyone seems to know everything about or sometimes is surviving something mental that no one knows anything about. That after smile is a badge of honor that you should wear with pride & its something that says so much about you. And the &, the most important part of the phrase “Before & After”, is the storm that rocked your world. That had the potential to alter your smile or your reason for it. It’s the shift in your world, or more accurately, the world as you used to know it. Before & After‘s are proof of growth in yourself and in your life. And growth is always so so important.

My before picture was taken a couple months before my & happened. And my after was taken a couple years after climbing one of my most difficult mountains to date. And I chose to crop out the rest of my body for these pictures because I wanted to show you how my smile has not changed even though my body has. I actually believe it’s a brighter, more resilient smile. Can you tell which is which? My before vs my after? Ok. You can probably tell because my eyes look a bit more tired (a couple more kids will do that to a parent), my hairs a bit different and I’ve aged a little bit. But besides those details that no one is exception from, I find that it’s hard to tell the difference. And that’s because that’s a Josie smile. A smile that is a result of a person and who she is at her very core & not of her circumstances. It isn’t brighter because my life is going good and dims when life gets hard. It’s a smile that combines all the good & bad and shows that I always find a way to have the good outweigh the bad. And that’s because of perspective & attitude. I actually chose such a wide range in time to prove that your after picture doesn’t have to come directly after a storm. Rest & recovery before you take your after picture is ok. It can help strengthen & brighten a smile.

There are many things that affect our smiles & sparkle in our eyes. Things that changes & shapes us, sometimes in the most difficult and surprising of ways. That’s why there is always going to be a difference in our before & after pictures no matter how hard we try to not let a situation effect us. But the truth is, storms prompt change. And while we are so quick to discover the negative changes from the storm, we should always come to find at least one positive from the storm as well. It might not come to us right away, but I hope & pray it will come to you one day. And that’s what is going to show up in the after picture. The determination to find that rainbow after the storm. Not looking exactly the same as you did before is ok. Because you aren’t the same. But embracing the after & knowing that one day it’ll be the before picture for your next storm, is important. See beyond the tired eyes and the wrinkles that seemed to show up overnight and into that smile. Because if you crop out all the extras that are just facts of life, it’s the smile that doesn’t change because of, but instead with the storms. If you let them. I hope you can see so much in my before & after pictures and I hope you wonder what yours say about you.

#TheOneLeggedMommy #BeforeAndAfter #LookAtTheSmile #Amputee #Amputation #Details #HipDisarticulation