Her name was Maria and this year could not have gone less likely than what she would have imagined.
It all started when Maria’s great uncle Dantes died and surprisingly left her a brand new camera. It was for her birthday, and she couldn’t think of why he would do this.
“He saw how you framed the world with your eyes Maria, he thought it was beautiful.” Maria’s aunt, uncle Dantes’ daughter said “We all think it is, we hope you make something beautiful with this.” Maria stood in front of uncle Dantes’ immediate family, her eyes landed on her gay cousin.
She remembered how he came out, and how it was a challenge for their family, and immediately, she thought: beautiful.
It was hard, for all of them, the struggle of the elders for their love and pride, for their beliefs to be bent their children’s way.
But after, now, it was beautiful.
Hard, and painful, and beautiful.
Maria grinned, she didn’t cry as she bowed in thanks, before grabbing Charlie’s hand and running to the garden.
“Grab your compact mirror” she pointed a finger at him “I know you have one, find the best lighting, set up a chair and wait for me.”
“As you say.” Charlie shrugged, and then borrowed a chair to sit under the sun, just behind him, Uncle Dantes’ coffin.
“Perfection.” Maria laughed as she dragged two more of her cousins and ordered them to stack chairs for her, as she didn’t have a tripod.
“What are we doing exactly?” another one of Uncle Dantes’ daughters asked as she had her hands on her hips, watching as the grandchildren ran around following Maria’s orders.
Maria ran to fix Charlie’s collar, flipped a look to her aunt and said “I’m making something beautiful.”
A week later after sleepless nights of editing she invited uncle Dantes’ entire family once again.
After setting up her own grandparents’ garage she grinned and closed the gate, turned the lights off and barked another order at Charlie.
The projection screen was all black
Charlie’s voice filled their ears.
He whispered so his voice wouldn’t break.
“What he said when I came out?” then he laughed.
“He said I couldn’t have been because…” a picture of uncle Dantes cradling a baby Charlie in his hands appeared on the screen “because my fashion sense was crap.”
Laughter and tears fell.
“But then… then he asked me to be patient, I was so scared what everyone else would say, but he was…he was the kind of person you couldn’t be scared of. And he said to be patient, because he was going to be with me the entire time, coming out. And he was, as…as I’m sure everyone remembers, he threw a party.” Charlie’s face wrinkled as he sobbed “He bought a tarpaulin, and he didn’t just accept me, he loved me being gay more than I ever had.”
She’d made it, Maria grinned as almost her entire family laughed and cried, she’d made something beautiful.
Looking across the room, Charlie already had his eyes on her.
*
For the next few months Maria began her adventure of making videos with her friends, yet as the perfectionist that she was they’d only made three in the last six months.
