The Elephant Man. Perhaps you have heard of him. I wonder – do you know his real name? Joseph Carey Merrick. One of the ugliest human beings – although some would call him an animal – to ever live, to those who know what he looked like and assume the rest. One of the most beautiful human beings – although I would call him an angel – to ever live, to those who know what his heart felt and what his mind thought.

I will never call Joseph Merrick by anything besides his name. It is degrading, it is cruel, to call him anything else. Cruelty. Something Joseph Merrick endured far too much of in his life.

Joseph Merrick was born in 1862 in England. He died at the age of 27 in 1890 at the London Hospital. He began to grow abnormal growths as a child and was ultimately shunned by his own father and left home at 17. He worked in a warehouse for 4 years and his bizarre bone growths became larger and larger with every passing year. Joseph Merrick contacted a man named Sam Torr in 1884 and proposed he put him on display. Torr agreed and they chose to call Mr. Merrick “The Elephant Man”, who was soon placed under the management of one Tom Norman. Norman’s horrific and disgusting freak shop was located across the street from the London Hospital, where Dr. Frederick Treves worked. Dr. Treves found Mr. Merrick and had him examined and photographed just before Joseph Merrick was sent to Europe by Norman.

While Joseph Merrick was in Europe, he was robbed and abandoned, though he eventually found his way back to London, where he was found by police, literally speechless, with Dr. Treves’s card on his person. Dr. Treves took Mr. Merrick in at the Hospital, where he lived the rest of his life. Joseph Merrick and Dr. Treves developed a very close friendship during the last years of Mr. Merrick’s life. He was visited regularly by high class individuals and had many female admirers including an Welsh Princess.

What is there to admire and envy about a man like Joseph Merrick? A man who is severely deformed and has a condition no one understands to this day? Some people – most people – would say nothing. Then there are those rare individuals in the world who look at Joseph Merrick and smile at a man who could not have been kinder to a soul who ever wandered this Earth. They would say there is everything to admire about Mr.Merrick – his beautiful mind and kind soul.

Joseph Merrick may have been the kindest human being to ever live. I would give the world to meet such an amazing man. I wish I could give him the world. I wish I could give him the love he deserved. I wish I could go back in time and rid Mr. Merrick’s life of every cruel person he ever came across – every individual who laughed at his appearance, who threw their garbage at him, who hated him for being a little bit different.

I wonder how people can be so hopelessly cruel. The story of Joseph Merrick has not ended. His skeleton is on display – at this very moment – at the Royal London Hospital. Even in death, people are looking at Joseph Merrick. Let him rest. Let him be free. Let him be normal.

Joseph Merrick wanted to be normal the night he died. He could not sleep as you and I do. He had to sleep sitting up because his head was too heavy and he would suffocate if he laid down and slept flat. On the last night of his life, Mr. Merrick tried to sleep as everyone else does, as you and I do, and he died as a result, alone and cold in London.

You are probably sitting down somewhere in the best country in the world, where you almost every freedom you could ever dream of. People are envious of your home. You are probably worried about school and relationships, your blemished skin and imperfect body. People are envious of you. You are probably reading this little, mostly meaningless sentence on a phone of computer, mostly healthy and at the end of the day, mostly happy, and you have forgotten – there are people who are no longer alive to be envious of your life or mine. They are gone and they will never see this beautiful world we have the pleasure of existing in. I wish they could see the place we call Earth today and witness 7 billion people live and die.

Think of every beautiful place you have ever been to. I think of Australia and its stunning coastlines. You may think of Hawaii and its brilliant jungles. Now think of every beautiful place people like Joseph Merrick will never go to. Be happy you have the option to visit the most gorgeous locations around the world and never take it for granted.

There is one person I wish I could walk along the Australian shores with. There is one person I wish I could explore the Hawaiian jungles with. I wish I could exist in a world with one more person still living it it. There is only one person I can think of – Joseph Merrick. The Perfect Man.