Grandma Knows Best | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Grandma Knows Best | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marlene Bonney
02/21/15
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Crystal Mame, the tallest and most important in her class, was also the most poised and beautiful. As Crystie grew up into the county’s Beauty Queen role, her grandmother, afraid this admiration would spoil the young woman, sought to instill a sense of humbleness into her life.

“ ‘Beauty is as beauty does!’ ” my dear, “remember, ‘beauty is only skin deep’.”

Crystie heard these words in her head, but spurned their true message. After all, she was smarter and richer and more beautiful, and therefore, better than anyone in her family or acquaintances, or even in the county, for that matter. She learned at a young age to use her many attributes to the greatest advantage. Like the brightest star in the nighttime sky, she stood out in all her glory. She joined pageants and competitions, and, more often than not, won. This only added to her snobbishness and prideful ways.

There was only one thing that kept her from excelling even farther, a thorn in her side that had punctured her balloon of self-importance. This wound festered over time until its venom crept into her very soul. This thorn was a petite, self-effacing, non-descript classmate named Mary. Mary was mildly autistic, and because of her condition, any progress she made was lauded and celebrated and rewarded. Although her fellow classmates rejoiced with Mary, this did not set well with Crystal Mame, casting a shadow over her more deserved popularity. And, to add insult to injury, the little pest was as kind and humble as Crystal was rude and arrogant. In short, Mary was supposed to live in Crystal’s shadow, which she didn’t seem to mind a bit—this was beyond comprehension.

“No one’s that nice, unless they have an agenda for themselves,” Crystal Mame often commented to her peers, “Maybe if she was pretty and didn’t wear those ugly glasses and wasn’t so short, and could at least print her own name legibly, I could understand it. But, REALLY, how could SHE have been nominated for class president?! For goodness sakes, she smells like she lives in a dumpster!”

The teacher eventually sat them side by side, Mary and Crystie, this unlikely pairing an affront to the latter’s sensibilities. So Crystal Mame stretched herself up even more proudly and fluttered her long, thick eyelashes and blew scented kisses to her fans, her fully-developed body an extra bonus. She almost—but, not quite—felt sorry for little Mary. Mary: such an ordinary, common name.

A few months into the school year, Crystie caught a winter chill that rocked her superiority. Her face became pale and her demeanor listless and her charm dwindled in kind. It didn’t help that Mary’s healthy, robust body made Crystie’s glaringly sickly. Crystie drooped under critical scrutiny, her original wound’s poison weakening her immune system until she became deathly ill. Not able to stand anymore, she shrunk down to Mary’s level and was thus able to see things in a much different perspective. She was amazed at this altogether different view. It was very unpleasant to be so close to Mary’s pungent presence and she abhorred her plight while she groveled at Mary’s feet. Then,

Mary brushed against her and that simple touch mysteriously made Crystie feel a bit stronger. Now, ordinarily, she would have been repelled; but, somehow she recognized there was a healing power attacking the flu-bug that had mercilessly laid her low. Like an evangelistic healer laying hands on a seeker’s head, Mary’s caress invigorated Crystal Mame, who slowly arose, raising her hands and face upward. The whole experience was uncanny, Mary’s smiling, submissive face below her a prick to Crystie’s awakening conscience. Simultaneously, invisible scales dropped off her eyes, and she saw Mary’s worth compared to her own unworthiness, and she found herself wanting.

“I’m only a shallow showpiece, but Mary? Mary is useful and that very usefulness makes her beautiful from the inside out.”

Now, Crystie shares the limelight with her sidekick and does not mind a bit. For, Mary, a.k.a. Marigold, chases away dangerous bugs and diseases with her pungent odor that could threaten Chrysanthemum’s (Crystal Mame’s) very existence.

For that, Crystal Mame is humbly grateful, and she is often seen working with Mary and helping her overcome her limitations, all the while, blowing perfumed kisses to the gardener, Grandma Mamie.

Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

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