Saturday, February 07, 2009

Brown Eyes (Redraft)

When I was eight-years-old, I stared into the mirror and captured the image of my face. I looked at my lips and took note of their fullness. I looked at my nose and realized how much I really didn’t like it. It was an okay nose, but I would have picked another one from God’s inventory. I then zoned in on my cheeks. Full, but not too fat… Yep, I had a couple of my daddy’s dimples. I wished that I could somehow poke a couple more dips in my cheeks.

“Not too bad.” I shamelessly thought. I had some pretty good looking features carved into my honey brown skin. Not perfect… But I decided that I was indeed a good looking child.

I continued to stare into the face of a girl that I was becoming more familiar with as each second leaped into the past. Next, I caught a glimpse of my long, long eyelashes. I admired their beauty and reach. Those lashes extended above the image that I would zone in next, my eyes. I looked into the intense, yet innocent, brown eyes of a girl, who was unaware of the dreadful days to come. I studied the brown. It was so rich, pure, and honest. A true brown… Light enough to see the brown. Dark enough to be called brown. But in that brown sea, pain, sickness, and death stirred beneath the surface. I didn’t know it yet, but those brown eyes were the deep brown pits of despair. The brown would unleash the fury that hides behind them and life would change. The brown would fade, and the girl’s image in the mirror of herself would fade with it.

Now, the image of the brown eyes in the mirror is a memory, just as the girl’s innocence and youth. So much has been lost… So much has faded away… The brown hides from the light. The brown lost the fight.

When I stare into the mirror, I see nothing. I don’t see brown. I see black. I am not a child anymore. I am a woman, whose brown eyes died.

How do eyes die? How does brown fade? How does the dark live? Why did brown fade to gray?

My brown eyes. My brown eye. The other eye is gone to meet His maker. The one that is left is no longer brown. But it’s trying to be faithful to the woman who has lost so much since it was brown. These brown eyes of mine have a story to tell. And one day, they will tell their story, and will sing the gospel and the blues.

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