When she was a little girl 
    they told her she was beautiful 
but it had no meaning
  in her world of bicycles
        and pigtails
and adventures in make-believe. 


Later, she hoped she was beautiful 
   as boys started taking notice 
of her friends
  and phones rang for
              Saturday night dates.


She felt beautiful on her wedding day,
     hopeful with her
   new life partner by her side 
but, later, 
    when her children called 
          her beautiful,
she was often exhausted, 
     her hair messily tied back,
no make up,
    wide in the waist
        where it used to be narrow;
she just couldn't take it in.


Over the years, as she tried,
    in fits and starts,
       to look beautiful, 
   she found other things 
to take priority, 
    like bills
         and meals,
  as she and her life partner 
            worked hard
                  to make a family,
    to make ends meet,
        to make children into adults,
            to make a life.


Now, 
    she sat.
 Alone.
Her children grown, 
     her partner flown,
and she couldn't remember 
    the last time
       she was called beautiful. 


But she was.


It was in every line on her face,
   in the strength of her arthritic hands,
 the ampleness that had
      a million hugs imprinted
         on its very skin,
  and in the jiggly thighs and
                 thickened ankles
        that had run her race for her.


She had lived her life with a loving
   and generous heart, 
         had wrapped her arms
      around so many to 
            to give them comfort and peace.
  Her ears had 
             heard both terrible news
      and lovely songs,
and her eyes
      had brimmed with,
  oh, so many tears,
       they were now bright
           even as they dimmed.


She had lived and she was.
   And because she was, 
        she was made beautiful. 


~ Suzanne Reynolds, © 2019


Photo credit: Nina Djerff
Model: Marit Rannveig Haslestad