The Truth
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Curvy & Confident
By Melissa Wootan

I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time.
~Anna Freud

I was in my forties before I learned the truth about my mother . . . and the truth about myself. My sister had put together a montage of photos in celebration of my parents’ wedding anniversary. I watched as images depicting forty years of life and love flashed across my computer screen: my mother beaming at the camera as a nineteen-year-old bride; mom cradling my newborn sister in her arms.

As each photo documenting every momentous occasion of Mom and Dad’s life together appeared, I was surprised by what I saw. The pictures of Mom showed a very different version of the person I remembered from my childhood. She’d been overweight my entire life (her words, not mine) but the woman in the slideshow was anything but big. She was curvier in some seasons of life than others, but absolutely beautiful, with a body most women would love to have. (Keep reading)