The
Worth of a Soul
By the time Helen was eighteen months old, her eyes
were a bright blue,
and her hair was a gold red.
When her eyes changed from sky-blue to sea-green,
I was certain that she would be a rare beauty.
However, Helen’s personality and innate kindness
would always outshine her physical beauty.
The camera has always adored Helen.
Her smile reflects a loving nature that clings to every fiber of her
being.
At
three years old, Helen had already developed an unusual logic
that made perfect sense to her.
Of course she would give away her favorite teddy bear
to a child “who needed it” more than she did.
In kindergarten, it seemed perfectly natural for her to love the
unlovable,
including the teacher who struck terror within the hearts of the other
students.
Helen was quite certain her teacher was delighted to be with her,
and by the second week of school,
Helen was feeding her oranges from her grimy, little hands.
By
second grade, Helen had become the champion of the weak,
the hope of the hopeless, and she did it all with a selfless grace,
that was nothing short of miraculous.
When Helen reached high-school, it was pretty evident
that our house would always bulge with teenagers
of every shape, creed, and ethnicity.
I still have the pictures from Helen’s thirteenth
birthday party.
I can pick out the boy who needed to check-in with his parole officer,
before the cake was cut. Then, there is the girl,
who couldn’t drink cola, because her religion forbade it.
We went running across the street for chocolate milk.
In the corner is the boy whose parents had escaped from Vietnam
when he was a baby, and the girl whose father was a Taiwanese diplomat.
African-American, Irish, Pilipino, and Caucasian faces stare cheerfully
out at me.
It was an incredible feat just to round up all the kids
for a one of a kind picture.
It took three snap-shots to complete the photograph.
What an unforgettable sea of grinning faces peer out from those pictures,
as though the United Nations had dropped off all its teenagers
for a day of ice-cream and cake.
In
the fall of her sophomore year,
Helen and I found ourselves out shopping the malls for school clothes.
I was doing some creative arithmetic, trying to make our budget stretch
into something that would delight, and still be affordable.
At one point, I noticed a man and young girl moving straight towards us.
The man was dressed in work clothes,
and he seemed to be encouraging the overweight youngster closer to us.
I could identify with the girl.
I looked back upon my teen-age years with horror.
These two seemed to be disagreeing, and were almost upon us.
Helen
had just finished exchanging greetings
with one of her countless squealing friends, and as she turned around
she came face to face with the reluctant teenager.
Faster than the speed of light, Helen’s eyes sparkled with recognition.
Her face broke into a brilliant smile, and she shrieked with joy!
“Cindy!!!” She
squealed, as she threw her arms around the chubby girl’s neck.
Suddenly Cindy’s
face broke into a beautiful smile,
and she squealed right back at Helen.
Then they both did a hand-holding, happy-dance,
while grinning and shrieking with delight.
Cindy was transformed from a rather sad, “just-like-I-was” kid,
into the vivacious young girl she truly was meant to be.
Cindy and Helen chattered away, totally oblivious to Cindy’s father and
me,
as we stood amazed.
Who was this unconsciously, generous, loving daughter
of mine?
How had God graced my life with someone so bright and beautiful?
How different my life might have been,
had there been a Helen to accept and love me when I was a teenager.
When I turned back to Cindy’s father,
I saw his face transformed from frustration and sadness,
to one of joy.
Cindy had seen Helen, he confided, long before Helen
spotted her.
She had identified Helen as “one of the popular girls.”
As Cindy’s father encouraged her to speak to Helen, Cindy had refused.
Why would a somebody, she reasoned, want to talk to a nothing?
Cindy’s father had felt helpless to make his daughter believe
how precious she truly was.
Helen, in one unpretentious act,
had given Cindy and her father a priceless gift
of unconditional acceptance and love.
Cindy’s Dad’s eyes shone with pride and gratitude,
but no more than the gratitude that filled my heart for the gift that is
Helen.
I learned a great lesson that day.
I learned that true friendship does not measure another with speculation.
Fourteen-year-old Helen taught me
that the worth of a soul is not in the eye;
it’s in the heart.
©
Jaye Lewis, 2004
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