I love scars. I have always

been infatuated with them. They speak much more about the depth and soul

of a person than some immense stock portfolio (is there such a thing anymore?)

or some miniature cell phone.

I am not a sadist or a masochist

"Weakest Link"). Yet, there is something interesting about an

event that actually records itself in the modification of your flesh.

Now supermodel Niki Taylor is going to to have one heck of a "skin

memory."

It looks like Taylor has turned

the corner in her life-threatening battle with injuries she suffered in

a car crash last month though, she is still in critical condition in Atlanta's

Grady Memorial Hospital. Most of the serious damage was to her liver,

and I'm sure surgery has left it's irresistible mark, not even considering

what other cuts and contusions she might have suffered. I hope she sees

the good and the hope that her scars represent and not the loss of her

skin's perfection.

I don't know that much about

Niki Taylor (I have always been a Cindy Crawford fan) but I know I have

felt compassion for her before, and her family, when her sister tragically

passed away a few years ago. Tragedy sometimes makes us soldiers in the

same war. Now the supermodel has her own struggle to fight, but she has

score of fans and friends lending moral support.

Niki is a babe, and if she

had been a president I am sure her name would have been George Foxington

or Dwight D-Elicious, but it's funny how such superficial things are all

but forgotten during times like these. I have gone to church enough in

my life and my momma taught me well enough to know that a whole different

kind of love is appropriate in a situation like this; especially considering

hospital Jello is exactly the same color as hospital liniment.

I hope with every call and

letter and flower and card from every fan or friend, all the Taylors feel

there is a whole world pulling for them.

I have a scar on my right wrist

in the shape of a capital "L." I think it's rather impressive

and have made up really good stories during the course of my life on how

I got it. It may be the only thing about me that is truly cool. The E-True

Hollywood Story behind my scar is rooted in my childhood.

I was around 14 and I was chasing

my brother Mike, hapless as usual, and he ran up the steps into the house

and slammed the door trying to keep me from coming inside. I tried to

stop the hinged wall of death as he flung it at me, but I hit the window

in the door instead of the wood. My hand went through the pane and my

wrist was cut in a way that would make an emergency room surgeon lose

his lunch. I never caught my sibling, I never got stitches and I have

a hieroglyphic that reminds me of my younger days that will never go away.

Do you know that there is not

a single, positive synonym for the term "scar"? They all refer

to weakness or blemishes or failing. And now Niki Taylor has one.

Will it make her less attractive?

Hardly. Even if she didn't have a smile that you could visit with a fourth

grade field trip, she will come out of this event more real and more human

than this world would ever allow her to be anyway. And therein, simply,

is your synonym for beauty.

[Visit Billy Murphy on the

Internet at www.ebilly.net.]