The Courage to Wear Your Imperfections with Pride

What a Little Girl Taught Me About True Worth

I was volunteering last winter at our local community center, a spot that was always busy at holidays. Neighbors sympathetic to offering their blessings offered donations of clothing, toys, food, and more. On that day, my task was to go through boxes of clothes. I folded sweaters and got other volunteers to organize pants and hang coats on racks.

Halfway through my shift, I began to pull out a coat, but all I could see was one that I instantly grabbed. It was a patchwork of different fabrics in various colors and patterns, like nothing I’d ever seen. Bright red, plaid, floral, or even striped, some pieces. The stitching was implodent, as if someone had mendy with the Hanes and patches. It was, though, that coat — the kind that would draw the eye, not because of its beauty but because of its strangeness.

I brought it up, examining the cracked edges and faded seams. That wasn’t the kind of coat you’d pick out. I could sort of imagine setting it aside for a while and then deciding no one would want it.

Just then, I heard Viper’s soft voice beside me. “Is that for me?”

Mia, a little girl who always came into the center with her mom, was turned towards me. Big brown eyes sparkled even in the dim light of the storage room, but she couldn’t have been more than 8 years old.

“This?” I asked, holding up the coat. “You like it?”

It brought such a smile to her face, so wide even the snow outside might have melted. “It’s beautiful,” she said as she reached out. “I guess it’s coats my grandma used to make.”

She took it from me, wrapping it around herself. She didn’t seem to mind, it was a little big for her small frame. Letting the hem of it flare out like a princess gown, she spun around in it.

Mia ran the fingers of her hand over the patched bits. ‘My grandma always said every piece of fabric had a story.’ “When we didn’t have enough money for new clothes, she used to make coats like this.” The patches were full of love, courage, and hope, she said. That made them magical.”

I heard her words as she walked away, her coat proudly swishing behind her out into the cold afternoon.

That day later, I saw Mia outside, playing in the snow with a couple of kids. Flopping backward into the powdery white, she laughed and waved her arms to make a snow angel. Her red coat seemed to stand out as a beacon of joy against the white blanket.

Not everyone did, however. About her age, a boy pointed at her and sneered. He asked me, "Why are you wearing that ugly thing?” His words felt sharp, and even in the mirror, I could feel the hurt coming along the lines of Mia’s face.

But Mia didn’t flinch. She stood up from the snow, managing to brush the snow off her coat, and looked the boy straight in the eye.

“It’s not ugly,” she said firmly. “It’s magical. All pieces have a story — my grandma made sure these stories were of love and hope. Also, that’s what makes it special.”

The boy blinked at her confidence. He shrugged and returned to creating his snowman, and when a moment later passed, he shrugged and went back to building his snowman. Watching as her coat fluttered behind her like a cape, she turned and ran off to join another group of kids.

I saw her and was humbled. That little girl had faced ridicule with such poise and pride, reminding me of something I’d long forgotten: It’s beautiful to see beauty everywhere.

I was thinking about Mia and her coat for the rest of the day. In my own life, how many times had I pushed something — or someone — away, because it didn’t conform to the good enough I had deemed acceptable? How often had I lain hidden from my own flaws, afraid others would cast their judgment on me?

It wasn’t just a piece of clothing. It was pride, resilience, creativity, and most of all, love. They’d taken scraps—things most folks would toss out and put them together to make something interesting and meaningful. Mia, with her shining confidence, reminded me that we have these imperfections and quirks are what make us special.

I saw Mia again a week later at a community center. So she was sitting at a table, drawing with crayons. She made a picture of her coat and its authoring patches and wrote “My Magical Coat” at the top in block letters.

“How come you like that coat so much?” I asked, genuinely curious.

She looked up and smiled. “Because it’s different. That’s not everybody else’s coat. It reminds me of my grandma.” Her voice softened. “She told us that you didn’t have to have a perfect person or a perfect thing to make it amazing.” For what they are, you just have to love them.”

Her words scored open wounds in me. It’s so easy to forget in a world that values perfection (perfect appearances, perfect accomplishments, perfect lives) that the most beautiful things are the ones with flaws, scars, and stories to tell.

With each passing winter, I’d grow to see myself differently, the world I tried to navigate differently. I no longer spent my life trying to hide my imperfections. But as I started to let go, I just started embracing them as part of my story, as Mia has her own coat and her own patches.

I began to also notice the ‘patches’ in others; their quirks, their struggles, and how they moved through life. I was more patient, more understanding, and more grateful for how diversity colors the world with people and experience.

Mia’s coat taught me a lesson I’ll never forget: Likeness isn’t an equation for the appreciation of something — or someone. The stories they carry, the love they give, and the courage they have to be unapologetically themselves are what true worth lies in.

And if you are ever made to feel like you are not enough, like somehow your flaws make you less worthy, or, let’s face it, less deserving, then remember Mia’s coat. Tell that story, because your patches are worn with pride. That makes you one of a kind, and that’s good.

Lesson for the Reader

Accept your imperfection and the amazing experiences that you have gone through to make you you. Your life is a patchwork of love, resilience, and hope, just like Mia’s coat. Wearing it will make you inspire the beauty in people as well when you wear it with pride.

In a world that so many times often prides itself on perfection, it’s patches of our lives, those flaws, those struggles, that love we pour into every stitch that makes us truly extraordinary. It’s your story and you wear it well…

-Pugal Yazhini.