Thoughts.com Blogs - The Most Beautiful Person I Know

In the scheme of things, there are all kinds of beautiful people. Those who have hearts of gold, those with physical appeal, those wealthy enough to be able to buy physical appeal... Beauty is perceived in a miriad of different ways.

When I was a kid (the peanut butter sister between two bread (dough-head!) brothers), my older brother and I used to sometimes tease our little brother. He was different. He wore glasses and wasn't allowed to play rough. Back then we didn't know why, we just resented our mother's overprotection of the young one. It didn't seem fair to us.

As we grew a little older, we came to learn that our little brother had been born with glaucoma and this is what set him apart from other kids. At the unbearably early age of 18 months, he'd been whisked away from us to have the first in what turned out to be many eye operations. Growing up, he was just a regular kid who couldn't see all that well and sported a pair of completely uncool coke-bottle glasses. In his teens, because he couldn't play sports, he emersed himself in music. He signed up for guitar lessons and very quickly outgrew anything his teacher could impart.

Our home was always filled with his wonderful music. He sang and played for himself, but we were the grateful recipients of his talents. He wrote music and made that old guitar come to life. The kids at school began to look at him in a whole new way. Suddenly he wasn't just "that kid with the coke-bottle glasses" - he was a god behind that guitar. He would sit in the stairwells at school and just play. The accoustics were awesome in there. Kids would gather to listen. It took awhile for them to shake off the peer pressure of ignoring the dorky kid, but it happened.

By the end of high school, he had accumulated what I'd laughingly call his "harem." Girls that just wanted a piece of his magic. My older brother and I had even decided he wasn't that bad after all.

He was also very gifted artistically in other ways. I have a painting hanging on my wall which he did for me when he was in college. It's of a guy playing a guitar and it's been hanging there forever. I get comments on it all the time from people wanting to know who did it, or where did I get it. When I tell them the story I'm telling you now, they almost invariably say "wow." But, I'm skipping ahead here...

I mentioned that he attended college. He became an interior designer (not to be confused with an interior decorator!!). He got a great job and did very well. None of his co-workers had any idea that he couldn't see what he was doing. He had talent and enough vision to pull it off. For a while.

Fast forward to the present. My little brother is now in his forties, and completely blind. He went through many horrific attempts to save his vision, but it was all for naught. His life today? He has an amazingly wonderful wife and a beautiful, smart, talented little girl who adore him. He is unable to work in his field, so he's attending University for Philosophy to amuse himself. He lives in a major city, repleat with traffic nightmares at every turn, yet somehow he finds his way around. It scares the hell out of me that he does this, and if you mention it, he'll just laugh and tell you it scares the hell out of him too!

He does the most astonishing sculptures by touch (I'll upload some pictures if you like) and yes, he still plays the guitar like nobody's business. But these are just things he can do. It's who he is that makes me bust with pride to share his gene pool. He shares my off-the-wall sense of humour (we once sat in a crowded waiting room at one of his many eye surgeon appointments doing Monty Python sketches while scores of nervous strangers fell out of their chairs laughing). He is a wonderful father, a loyal friend to those who know him, a kind stranger in the street, a loving husband, and among so many other things, a brother who's strength and talents and massive heart I am honoured to know. Oh, and the high school harem? I can't think of a one of them who isn't to this day still a close friend.

His beauty is in his art and his music, but more than that, it's in his heart and soul. He makes me laugh, he is there when I'm down, his courage and strength make me really believe that NOTHING is impossible.