Inspire Me Mondays #15

Girl Power personified.

Inspired by: the luminous Nycolette of St. Petersburg, Florida.

As if being a pre-teen and teenager weren't hard enough in one's life journey, try being 11 years old when you notice your hair falling out in clumps. Nycolette noticed. Then more hair was lost and Nycolette was diagnosed with alopecia, an autoimmune disease that attacks the hair follicles in one's body and causes hair loss. Try being a bald girl during the cruel and angst-ridden years of Junior High. If you're like me, your heart is shuddering at the thought.

Body-bloating steroids were administered to counter-act the hair loss. Nycolette told me the medication was so uncomfortable she rebelled by spitting out the pills after putting them in her mouth. But behind the scenes, the Universe created an unexpected connection that gave Nycolette the dignity of reduced price and free human-hair wigs designed for children. When she and I met 2 years ago, she sported a gorgeous short blond number.

But wigs are hot and scratchy in Florida. And courage came early to a girl forced by fate to see clearly into the hearts and minds of people around her. When 10th grade began in late summer of 2008 for Nycolette, an English class assignment on personal timelines opened the gates to early freedom. She stood before the class, with the support of her best friend, and told the class of her struggle with alopecia. "It's the best thing that has ever happened to me", she said. Nycolette told her peers how she has been given the gift of seeing the truth of who people are. She knows well the ones who are truly capable of being her friends and the ones who never will be. Hair loss became her barometer of the quality of kindness in others. Her radar is impeccable and will serve her for a lifetime. At the end of the speech, Nycolette took off her wig. From the next morning forward, she has never put it back on.

And so I met this luminous Soul again this summer, sans wig and blond feathers covering her perfectly shaped head. The laser treatments are working. She is beauty personified, this girl who has walked through fire. Lithe and lovely with sparkling blue eyes. Besides seeing the truth in people, Nycolette told me the other gift alopecia has given her. Confidence. Confidence that is palpable when in her presence. At 16. She is Girl Power personified. I am grateful to know she exists in this world. I am nothing less than inspired.

For more Inspire Me Mondays from people I adore, go HERE.