The toughest question Kara Morin may face in her first beauty pageant will likely arise from the swimwear competition, not the on-stage interview.
“I have two scars located on my femur and also on the side of my knee from the incisions that I’ve had,” said the 18-year-old hours before departing for the Miss Canada Globe pageant in Toronto.
“It is definitely difficult showing them because people often wonder what happened to you and sometimes I am not ready to talk about it.”
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The marks are traced back to May 5, 2014, at the intersection of 22nd Street West and Avenue M. Morin and two friends were on their way to high school track practice when a stolen truck that was evading police slammed into them.
Morin survived while her friends, Sarah Wensley and James Haughey, both 17, did not.
“I had a lot of moments to myself where I just kind of didn’t want anybody to get close to me because I thought they were going to leave me again,” Morin said of the months following the crash.
“I think it’s a blessing that I am here. I don’t think I am lucky, but having to go through it alone was one of the toughest things that I’ve ever had to do in my life,” she added.
“It was painful … watching her drowning in her pain and I wasn’t able to help her with it,” said Priscilla St. John, Morin’s mother.
“But I never gave up on her, even when she didn’t want to talk to me. I just kept talking to her, encouraging her.”
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Eventually, St. John was able to break through to her child. Morin said it’s her mother that helps her through the hardship.
“For her to just take the time to talk to me whenever I am feeling sad, mad,” Morin said.
“I go straight to her because she always knows what to say, she always knows how to make me feel better.”
Morin said a friend notified her about the pageant; however, it was her mom who convinced her to take part in it. Both said they believe it will be another step in Morin’s healing process.
“Physical appearance is what they all see, I want them to see what’s inside,” Morin said about the pageant, which starts on Wednesday with a preparation program.
“In this competition, they’re going to see my marks and they’re going to ask why. And I am willing to tell them what I had to do to get there and what I continue to do.”
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Morin and her mom will travel together for the event, but she said two others will also be there in spirit.
“They wouldn’t want me to give up which is why I proceed to be better from here on out.”
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