One of the most beautiful women in the world....

Take a good long look at this face. She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever had the fortune to come across....
Her name is Yvette Cade and she currently is about 34 years old. She has a small pixie voice with words that are deliberate and a high pitched giggle that perfectly matches her small pixie stature. She has one daughter and an ex-husband who is in jail for setting her on fire in 2005.

When she was 31, Yvette married Roger Hargrave falling in love with his wit and the gentle manners in which he treated his son from a previous marriage. Soon after their wedding, he began drinking a lot and became volatile, demanding, possessive, suspicious and abusive.

Yvette eventually had the courage to walk away wanting safety for her daughter but Hargrave was not willing to let her go. On the day Yvette's life was thrown into chaos, Hargrave had called her about 14 times in order to tell her he loved her. When he finally did get through to her, he told her, "he wanted to fry her like Crisco".

Six hours later, he showed up at her place of employment - a T-mobile store in Clinton, Maryland - and poured gasoline from a two liter bottle all over her and then chased her until she fell down. While she was down, he lit a match, dropped it on her and then walked away while 60% of her body sizzled.

He later told the judge that what he did was insane and he was sorry that he'd behaved that way. To date, he has never apologized or shown any remorse to his wife for the pain and suffering he has caused her .

One month before this happened, she had been to court to plead with a judge to enforce and injunction against Hargrave. After telling the judge that she was afraid for herself and her daughter and wanted an immediate divorce, the judge callously said, "Well I'd like to be 6'5" but I don't get that either. You'll have to go to divorce court for that" and then dismissed Yvette and the injunction with a bang of his gavel.

Later on the judge said that it was a clerical error that caused her injunction to be dismissed. Yeah, right...

Yvette has been through close to 20 surgeries, has had to wear a pressure suit and masks up to 23 hours a day to minimize scar tissue and do excruciating exercises and slather down in creams to keep her skin as supple as she can. She wears bandages on the back of her head where her hair was burnt into her scalp. She works her hands so she can maintain a bit of mobility to take care of her daughter, and hopefully one day, some grandchildren.

Hers is not a beauty regimen - but a life saving one. And yet, the struggle she goes through every day has made her more beautiful than most people I know.

Why? Because as part of that regimen, she also recites all of her blessings and the things that she is grateful for everyday.

And when she finally did have the courage to go out in public, although many were struck by awe at her appearance, that beauty came out at she said that she was there to plead with women in abusive situations to GET OUT and SEEK HELP. She put her own pride aside to encourage others to get help before it was too late.

(Yvette's five signs that you are in an abusive situation and should seek help are;

1. Jealousy and possessiveness
2. Controlling behavior
3. Verbal abuse
4. Threats to harm you, your family or your pet
5. Isolation from friends and family)

And on Oprah, when she was asked by the talk show queen what her thoughts were about Roger Hargrave, Yvette pursed her scarred lips, remained silent for a moment and then smiled slightly as she said, "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all."

The world may disagree with me thinking that Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Zeta Jones, or Angelina Jolie define beauty but I will proudly stand and hail that it's people like Yvette Cade who are some of the most beautiful people in the world.
I hope I can aspire to be that pretty one day....