I have never been one to casually use the word ‘Beautiful.’ My preference leans towards ‘Pretty,’ plain and simple. I can distinctly recall the first time I used it, and it was for my grandmother or often i call mami. She was unwell, lying in an ICU bed surrounded by a tangle of medical equipment. Yet, despite it all, she was smiling. In that moment, I found myself saying, “Mami, you look pretty.” It was the first time in all those years that I had uttered the word.
Mami, on the other hand, used it frequently. She would often say, “Look, what a beautiful girlyou are.” Then, she would add, “But Allah is also beautiful, daughter. Remember to pray to Him sometimes.” So, I prayed and almost used the word ‘beautiful’ to describe God, but then, my Mami never woke up. So, I refrained from using it. ‘Pretty’ remained my word of choice, even when it came to death.
I’ve used ‘Pretty’ for other things as well — a picturesque sunset, a roadside girl selling balloons, a refreshing August rain, and the way a girl’s wet hair danced near her dimpled cheeks. I’ve used it for a song that moved me to tears in the solitude of a washroom, for a bird perched by a street lamp, for my father when he wept beside my Mami’s picture frame, and for a 10-year-old girl I saw feeding a stray cat.
And for her, I used the word ‘Pretty’ too. Whether it was the way she absentmindedly twirled her hair, the slight furrow of her brow, or the tender way she held my hand against her cheek. But mostly, I used it when she wasn’t looking directly at me — when she laughed at something utterly absurd, her laughter bursting forth as she looked away. In those moments, I’d think to myself, “She smiles so prettily.”
However, ‘Beautiful’ always felt like a word too grand, too overwhelming. It’s a word that’s been overused and excessively romanticized by poets, Instagram reels, and those clichéd self-help books. Very few things in this world come close to being truly called ‘Beautiful.’ At most, ‘Very Pretty’ is as far as I can go. I used it for her and for my Mami, until one day, I was wounded. Wounded enough to breathe and not succumb to despair.
One day, I looked at my Mami when she didn’t wake up, and softly uttered, “You are still beautiful, Mami.” And one day, as she walked away, hand in hand with another, I whispered, “Your eyes are so beautiful.” I guess the gap between ‘Pretty’ and ‘Beautiful’ is bridged by pain, for pain is a force so overwhelming that it can turn anyone into a poet.
