National Adult Literacy Database

October 27, 2003

The following story was written by Zeporah Green, from Toronto, Ontario. Zeporah is a Jamaican-born grandmother. She has worked in the Home Support Services field for over 20 years. While attending East End Literacy, her goals are to improve her reading and writing skills and to become a professional children's storyteller.

The Word Beauty

by Zeporah Green

To me beauty comes through in many different ways. Firstly beauty can come from your looks. And again looks don't make all people beautiful. You can be pretty on the outside but far from being beautiful on the inside. I think the most important beauty comes from the inside. Also sometimes beauty can come with age. Someone at the age of ten may not be as beautiful like when they are forty-five. Beauty can come from your heart also, I know because I have a beautiful heart. So you can see there are many different ways to be beautiful.

When I was fifteen, that was the time I realized how beautiful I was. That was when I started to look after myself. I could do my own hair. At that time I was a hairdresser. I had also learned to make my own clothes. So I could look beautiful.

Now I am sixty. My beauty is still the same. I think it's how you take care of yourself. There are not many people at my age as elegant as me. My beauty comes from being myself. I drink a lot of water and milk. I eat vegetables, fish and soup. And I make sure to get my beauty rest.

So in my opinion if you want to age with beauty you must take good care of yourself.

[This story was taken with permission, from A Collection of Student Articles, February 2003, entitled What is Beauty?, written by students at East End Literacy.]