The tri­umph of light over dark­ness is a theme wide­ly ob­served in the cel­e­bra­tion of Di­vali.

Can­cer is a dark­ness that plagues sur­vivors long af­ter surgery and treat­ment. Of­ten, the scars left be­hind are both phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al.

One hen­na artist, Suraiya Sura­jdeen-Charles has tak­en up the chal­lenge to beau­ti­fy the scars left by the bat­tle with can­cer.

Every three min­utes, a woman is di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, it is the sec­ond lead­ing cause of death. Many sur­vivors are haunt­ed by scars and de­sire to feel beau­ti­ful again.

As we ob­serve Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month this Oc­to­ber, Suraiya is cel­e­brat­ing women through Mehn­di art.

In­spired by her moth­er, Rosan­na Sura­jdeen-Charles, who un­der­went a dou­ble mas­tec­to­my, Suraiya de­cid­ed to “give hope to those who are un­com­fort­able with their bat­tle scars.”

Not­ing that her moth­er is ad­just­ing to her im­age post-surgery, Suraiya said, “She has some­thing that she is not proud of and I de­cid­ed to beau­ti­fy her scars so she can feel more con­fi­dent.”

As a hen­na artist Suraiya said, “If I can give her back a piece of her life us­ing my tal­ent I would be hap­py, see­ing that she has giv­en me so much.”

Suraiya’s moth­er was di­ag­nosed with can­cer two years ago. She said the bat­tle has been hard and the road to re­cov­ery in­tense.

“Los­ing my breasts changed me in a way that I couldn’t love me and my body any­more,” Rosan­na said.

The sur­gi­cal re­moval of both breasts, par­tial­ly “changes how you feel about your body. You ex­pect your body to look a par­tic­u­lar way.”

De­ter­mined not to let her scars con­sume her, she of­fered her body as a can­vas to her daugh­ter.

“What she is do­ing for me is try­ing to help my mind con­nect with my body.”

She not­ed, “I need to re­con­nect with my breast in or­der to feel whole again and that is some­thing I haven’t felt in the last two years.”

Rosan­na is now can­cer-free, how­ev­er, it has been a dif­fi­cult jour­ney for the fam­i­ly.

Suraiya has been car­ing for her moth­er af­ter the surgery and said, “It was a strug­gle to see her lose her con­fi­dence, know­ing she was a very strong and in­de­pen­dent woman. It was hard for us both know­ing that those were the breasts she fed me with.”

Suraiya said, “do­ing the Mehn­di art on my mom is an in­di­ca­tion that she does not have to fight the bat­tle alone.”

She added both moth­er and daugh­ter are hap­py with the fi­nal art­work.

“I know she felt im­per­fect but this art is a good way to help her ac­cept her flaws.”

Suraiya is re­lieved that she can em­pow­er her moth­er to feel con­fi­dent again and wants all sur­vivors to know that scars or not, they are beau­ti­ful.

If you or some­one you know would like more in­for­ma­tion on Mehn­di art, you can con­tact Suraiya on Face­book at Mehin­di By Suraiya or call her at 759-3696.