Frank McOnner was born with a sight defect with cause him to become blind at the age of 5. He never went to a real, public school, and stayed home and learned from his mother. I was 16 and he was 17 when my school had a volunteer sign-up sheet for community service at the local Department of Services for the Blind. Forced by my parents to get out of the house and do this world some good, I signed up.
Only 2 other girls did, as well. The 3 of us took our science teacher, Ms. Millner's mini van to the Department. We helped some elderly folks eat their lunches, and I even helped a young girl learn to not be so afraid of her seeing-eye dog.
The program went on for 4 months, and for the last 2 months each of us girls got paired to aid a blind child our same age. Frank McOnner was who I was paired with because of how "creative" we both were. Frank was scared of many things, like crossing the street, talking to adults, and using a cane to see where he was going. Since Ms. McOnner was very defensive of her sightless son, she demanded he have a wheelchair until the age of 18, when he learned to walk using a cane. Of course, Frank knew how to walk, he just preferred not to.
Every morning, before I left for school, I walked to the Department to wake Frank up and wheel him to the Starbucks on the corner. He always drank something different and finished the whole thing, even if he hated it. He liked to talk about what the drink tastes like and what it feels like, possibly if it stung his tongue and felt creamy. I always got a hot chocolate, and I listened to him talk, and I updated him on things going on at my school, which he loved. Frank begged his mother to let him go to my high school for years, but being as overprotective as she is, she denied him every time. Frank was delighted to hear what I got on my health quizzes, and what gossip was being spread. I made sure to stay on the good side of one of the most popular girls in school to get all the juicy stuff.
Once in Franks room after school, while he'd been listening to music and I'd been reading, he pulled off his headphones and looked up at the ceiling with pale, blue eyes. "Tell me beauty," he said, loud and clear.
It took me a moment to posses what I truly thought beauty was, because I couldn't give a blind boy the wrong perception of beauty when he'd never seen it before. "Beauty is a sensation," I started, choosing my words carefully, "it's something you feel when you absolutely adore the way something looks, feels, tastes, or smells like. Beauty means you could crave a feeling you've felt before and you can't let it go. Beauty isn't just beachy-waves and red lipstick like it's cracked up to be. Beauty means something you want to feel forever can last forever. Beauty is an opinion of love."
The next day, as I took Frank down to Starbucks, he touched my hand and said, "I think you are beauty."
