When I met Susan Popper a few years ago, I never saw her smile. She says she didn’t smile for years. I don’t need to go into the details of her sometimes difficult life, you can follow that on her very authentic blog, Just Susan.

A few years ago, Susan’s life nearly fell apart and she has been slowly and painfully and openly rebuilding her life, choosing eventually to embark on a hero journey, to leave the ordinary and familiar  to move up into the country where she has found a job she loves and friends she loves.

I am one of them.

Susan and I have both experienced the drama of friendship, choosing the wrong friends, giving away too much, lured into unhealthy relationships. We are both working hard to learn how to be a friend, it is new to both of us.

Susan has battled many challenges in her life, one of them is obesity, which she is undertaking to confront now. She has already lost some considerable weight, and is research the possibility of additional help.

it is awfully difficult for Susan to talk about being obese, there is so much shame and pain involved. I’ve never been close to someone with a severe weight problem, and I have learned to see through that part of her – I don’t really see it anymore – and into her loving and generous soul.

I learn a lot from her every day about courage and strength.

She is a good friend to me, and as you know,  i have always struggled with friendship. She and I trust other, and talk honestly and openly to one another.

Susan is a student in my Writing Workshop, one of the most hard-working and committed students I have had.

She listens and grows and never quits, and her writing is taking on a depth and authenticity that makes teaching and editing worthwhile for me. She really works at it.

It seems a kind of miracle that Susan has moved up herself to give rebirth to her life, and in the process unleashed a powerful creative spark – she is writing almost every day on her blog and has become an accomplished photographer with her own Etsy Page, Susan Reframed.

She works just as hard at photography as she does at her writing.

As a photography, I love to do portraits of people who smile in what I call a radiant way.

My favorite smile portraits were of Kelly Nolan, who worked at the Bog restaurant, now shuttered. Susan has an equally radiant smile, a smile that radiates through her own body and conveys a particular kind of joy, and hard-earned joy it is.

Like Kelly, she is a strong woman, by which I mean she looks right into the lens and just dares the camera to click the shutter.

Susan is also a very close friend of Maria, the first close friendship we have shared together. Maria doesn’t talk much on the phone, Susan and I are inveterate phone yakkers.

Susan knows every part of our lives, and we know all about hers. She’s going to help out at the Open House this weekend, and I will be grateful to have her around. The Open Houses test me.

Today I  bought some flowers at our local Farmer’s Market – three small arrangements –  and Maria suggested I give one to Susan and one to the brillian artist Abrah Griggs, who was having brunch with us along with Susan.

Abrah designed the very wonderful logo for my new blog.

Giving the flowers away became a joke with Maria whispering to me that it would be generous (I just bought them this morning) and me whispering back that I wanted to keep them for our house.

Susan could, of course, hear every word we were saying. She pointed to the vase that she knew I loved and said she wanted that one.

Susan cracked up over this, and I got to see her full laugh, which involves her entire body. It is a great pleasure to see Susan so happy, I have seen her so sad.

Her smile traveled beyond her  body and into the room.

Her smile, like Kelly’s, has import beyond her and her life.

She is a testament to the power of fearless human beings to change their lives – obesity was just one problem she has faced.

She reminds me that only the strong get help, and that help helps. She reminds me to be honest about my life and to see it clearly.

She reminds me that we need not be slaves to our fears and the abuse that took away our peace of mind and confidence.

We need not turn our lives over to mental illness.

Susan is brave, and her smile is a beacon to the world and a light to the lost. We all suffer, we all have our battles to fight.

She seems to be  winning hers, and her smile tells a powerful story about life and faith. Outcomes can change at any point in our lives.

And oh yes, camera does not lie. You can’t fake smile like this.