There are two types of beauty. One is what I would call scripted beauty. This is the beauty for which we have cultural scripts – the kind we recognize and reward. We see it in physical attractiveness, beautiful objects, in picture-perfect homes with doting couples and smiling family photos. Scripted beauty doesn’t have to be superficial; it can be laden with meaning and yearning, and its absence in one’s life can feel oppressive. The second is what I call revealed beauty – the kind that usually remains obscured, yet sometimes discloses itself unbidden in moments of radiance and recognition where something surprising breaks through.

For years, my mother’s mental illness kept me from seeing her beauty.