A Different Kind of Beauty

Mesilla, New Mexico

She asked me all about myself, where have I been, what have I been doing? She wanted to know if I was married yet, or had any new love interests. She doesn’t remember everything about me, but she knows I am a friend, she knows I am someone that shared a Bingo game with her a time or two. And for some reason, she remembers me as someone who knows the Bible.

All these are true, I came to join her for Saturday Bingo, and was her special guest for the “Bring a Friend” game, I helped lead the Bible Study where I first met this lovely lady and got to know her, and she does accurately remember a boy that came along with me a time or two to get in on the Bingo action.

It had been nearly a year since I had last seen Patricia. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, but as I look intently, I can see that her hair had become longer, thinner and grayer, her teeth had decayed, and the excessive lean to her right side had become much more dominate than I last remembered.

Her health seems to be exponentially degrading. The frail, scratch to her whispering voice makes it difficult to understand through the strain and softness. But, strangely, it is as if every broken, frail, unbalanced state of her physical body tremendously pales in comparison to health and abundance of her rich heart.

The words that flow from her tongue are so kind and generous. As she looks intentionally into my eyes, I can see that she is desperately trying to hear each word that I say, engaging fully and diligently as her ears perk to listen closely. She responds to my words with understanding and validation and compliments my words with reinforced ideas and thoughts.

The engagement and overall care is something so beautiful inside this sweet woman. When she heard that I was writing, she said, “I bet you know how to write a great letter.” I told her that I sure do and maybe one day I will write one to her so she can find out for herself.

This friendship is very delicate. I delight in my time with Patricia, but also find that our relationship is a rare. Most people pass by this beautiful woman and talk about how much she smells, how she is always in the way, carrying too many objects on her wheelchair, or they ignore her out of lack of understanding or impatience to listen closely to her scrappy words.

Each scratchy word is one beautiful look closer and closer to this woman’s heart. Sometimes we know people who just shine, they just radiate out of their skin, their smile, their eyes. And then there is some, where it does take patience, intent-fullness and compassion to look beyond the appearance and impediments to find the true, inner beauty.

But when you find it, it is like nothing else. It’s a feeling, it is a warmth… it is a delicacy. And it makes it that much more beautiful, knowing the unlikeliness of finding such a charm in the rare underpins of the rugged surface layers.