BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

She was not beautiful.

Nothing about her was extraordinary.

Nothing about her made her stand out in a crowd.

She grew up in a family of six.

The eldest, she learned responsibility at an early age.

As she grew stronger and brighter,

She instilled a gentle cheer to whomever she met.

She was not beautiful.

But she made others feel beautiful about themselves.

She meets a rebel boy who thinks he’s all man.

Befriending him, she teaches him how to read,

A little boost the man needed to go to college.

They became friends fast and she fell

Fast in love with her rugged, handsome student.

The “man” then finds himself in a dilemma:

He soon found himself in love with a girl.

A girl so beautiful, she turned even the grouchiest man’s head.

Her hair was a halo of light around her,

Her eyes the bluest blue of ocean.

Like an angel, he tells his tutor —

Like a beautiful angel.

The girl swallows a lump at her throat.

She was not beautiful,

She did not possess the heart of the one she loved,

But she did not care.

As long as he was happy,

She would be — or she tried to be.

She helped him write the most beautiful letters to his angel,

All the time envisioning that it was she herself

Receiving those very letters.

And so the girl helped him choose the right words,

Buy the right gifts for his angel.

His angel brought him much joy

And much pain to the girl who cried behind her smiles.

But that never stopped her from giving more

Than she would ever receive.

Then one day, the most terrible thing imaginable broke loose.

The angel he loved left him for another man,

A richer, more successful man.

The boy was stunned.

He was so hurt he did not speak for days.

The girl went to him.

He cried on her shoulder and she cried with him.

He hurt and so did she.

Time went by.

And so the wounds heal.

The boy realizes something about his friend/tutor

He never realized before.

How her laughter sounded heavenly,

How her smiles brightened up the darkest days.

And, simply, how beautiful — yes, beautiful —

she looked to him!

Beautiful.

This plain, simple girl was beautiful to him.

And he began to fall,

Fall so in love with this beautiful girl.

One day, he picked up all his courage to see her.

He walked to her house, nervous and fidgeting,

Running his thoughts over and over in his head.

He was going to tell her how beautiful she was to him.

He was going to tell her how wonderfully in love he was

with her.

He knocked.

No one was home.

The next day he found out,

The beautiful girl he loved had a brain aneurysm

That put her into a coma.

The doctors were grim and the family decided to let her go.

One final time he got to see her.

He held her hand,

He stroked her hair,

And he cried for this beautiful girl.

He cried for he will never see her smile

Or hear her speak his name.

He cried.

But it was too late.

The beautiful girl was buried and the heavens broke out

In a beautiful spring shower, weeping for their loss.

She was the most beautiful girl in the world.

Look around you.

Aren’t there a lot of plain faces?

Take a good look,

A real good look, or you might miss out

On that beautiful person.

Forever.