An old man in Wal-Mart once asked me, "How would you define 'beautiful'?"

I shrugged at him. I am not a dictionary. I was a thesaurus. As a writer, my head was not only packed with ideas, but words that stood in place for the ones I needed to replace. "Beautiful is beautiful, I guess," I answered him, shrugging.

He sighed, turning to tower his eyes over the bookshelves.

I went home, wondering. How would you describe 'beautiful'?

...

What is an appropriate synonym for that word?

I snatched the thesaurus off of my bookshelf, which was standing at the end of the bed. I flipped through it, the pages frenzied as I scoured the familiar words.

The answer to my question was disappointing. "Pretty, charming, stunning..." These weren't right....

I knew the synonyms in an instant.

"Chloe," I said. "Anna. Jasmine. Alyssa. Fabiyawm. Mom. Dad." Perhaps they had put in such terrible synonyms because all of the good ones were too many.

'Beautiful' was every one of my friends, all of my enemies. Everyone who put me down, and everyone who lifted me up. Everyone I had met, and everyone I hadn't met. Even the most stupid, most judgemental. Even the most hurtful, and the most clueless. They were all unique.

Beautiful : adjective, UNIQUE

Hey, I figured it out, but I am still a thesaurus. That man isn't going to get a definition anytime soon.