A Beauty Never Seen

“I want my picture taken on the beach at Paradise Island,” she announced, “because my hair is beautiful and I want everyone to see me.” I was struck by her sincerity. Her black hair, a powerful contrast to her white skin, had obviously been braided the day before in Freeport, Bahamas and was in neat corn rows with white beads dangling from the end. She wore a matching black and white bathing suit which corresponded nicely with her walking stick. She was blind and would never see the picture soon to be taken for everyone else to see. Her smile however was beatific but eclipsed by her youthful enthusiasm. She’s a teenager and over the few days we were on a cruise ship, I watched her do all of the things that adolescents do … fill her plate like they’ll never be another meal, jump into the swimming pool with the other kids, and stroll off by herself to get whatever struck her fancy. The white and black walking stick would click from side to side of the polished wooden deck as she made her way this way and that. She seemed to always be wearing half-a-smile and her eyes were forever focused somewhere else. When Sarah and I took the girls to the beach in Nassau, there she was enjoying the crystal clear waters of the Gulf Stream and working on her tan as she lay on the white powder sandy beach. As the bands played, she danced a swirling kind of motion with her knees bouncing up and down with her arms outstretched. Her family seemed to both dote on her and keep a distance at the same time. They were older with grey hair, saggy skin and moved much slower that she does. The last time I saw her she was climbing out of the salt water swimming pool and somehow navigated the rows of chairs to her family through the cacophony of screams, talk and loud music blaring from the sound system. I think she is quite remarkable. There were others too, not blind but wheel chair bound or hobbling on canes. Not much seemed to stand in their way either as I saw them rolling down city sidewalks and shopping in straw markets. I watched one flip herself into a hot tub which scared the legion of kids that were in it and within seconds she had the bubbling water to herself. It only took a few seconds though before others joined her. Like everyone else I’ve had difficult things thrown my way in life. Abrupt disturbances that rocked my world, the abandonment of love and friends, the depression that loneliness brings have all hit me at the same time leaving me wounded, hurt and wondering if I would ever truly live again. Luckily, over the past few years I’ve mostly shaken off the trauma of the past and now work towards a future where the sun is shining brightly over a clam blue ocean. Every time I saw her on this trip, I stopped to watch her for a second or two. She personified an elegant grace that I do not have. Perhaps it was because she was in public and screams like most adolescent girls when she doesn’t get what she wants. I’ll never really know but I don’t think she’s like most teenagers. Most kids on the ship were obnoxious intrusions with absentee parents. They overindulged in everything from Pizza to ice cream and literally ran the adults out of the pool every afternoon. They screamed at their parents when they were around and the singular most often used phrase I heard on the boat was “THAT’S NOT FAIR!” Her walking stick steered her away from such things. She has a beauty that she’s never seen but one that she knows with everything inside of her is there. I saw it.