The Beauty Finder

I met her volunteering.  Every day that we worked together she showed up with a smile and what I knew was a life of experience that lead to character and wisdom. She didn’t give me a lot of advice, and she never presumed to be someone she wasn’t.  She just had a gentle demeanor that allowed me to share some of my life with her. When I would go on different interviews she would cheer me on, and was always there to encourage me when I found out I didn’t get a job. I was just married and we had a dog, and she would always ask about them, taking a genuine interest in my life. She would share her life too -- stories, pictures of her pets and her grand baby. Hope and joy were threads woven into her character; she was one of those people that you wanted to be around, hoping that her character would somehow rub off. She was beautiful, and to me her most beautiful trait was her ability to see the beauty in others.

As we volunteered, we came into touch with several other people, and I watched as she interacted with them. She treated everyone as if they were an old friend. She laughed with them, worked with them, and I watched as my friend was so willing to love people as they were. She saw a certain beauty I didn’t, and in doing so, she taught me to do the same. She saw that “she” was a good person, that “he” wanted to help and earnestly seek the welfare of those around him. I warmed up to other people I may have passed by because of her. What I loved most about it was the kindness she showed was completely genuine — she never faked or put on, it was simply part of her character and heart for others. 

As we spent time together, she would tell me stories about when she was my age and the different places she lived. Her husband had been in the Navy and so, after they got married, they moved every several months. They lived on the west coast, the east coast, in the midwest, in the south — everywhere. Right after they married, he was stationed in California. They lived near the beach in a tiny apartment, so tiny in fact, that for Christmas they were limited with how much decorating they could do. Because they couldn’t fit a traditional pine, she got green cellophane and put it on their wall in the shape of a tree. I loved hearing her tell that story, because even when beauty was hard to find, she created it.

One night, just before we moved to Atlanta, we had gone to the “Mountain Opry" to listen to some bluegrass with her and her husband. We were driving around looking for ice cream. As we drove through the almost empty streets of that little city, I asked them if they had any advice for a young couple relocating for the first time. She smiled and said, “Look for the beauty, because it’s always there.”

I think about those eight words often; partially because I need[ed] to hear that advice, especially at that moment, but also because it sums up her character and who she is so well. As I looked back on our time volunteering and on our friendship, I recalled her capability to show a genuine interest in and kindness to other people. I remembered all of the people we’d encountered together and how she was able to love them — because she was able to see beauty in everything and in every body.

For Christmas one year, she gave me a brooch — it was lovely, silver, and covered in “diamonds.” It’s beautiful, it sparkles, and on gloomy winter days I look on the lapel of my coat and see a little bit of beauty. I smile, knowing that she may not see this quality in herself, but she is someone who finds beauty in the broken places.

Sometimes you have to look a little harder, sometimes you have to put it there yourself, but beauty is always there. She taught me that.