What do you see?

“Stop staring at me” she implored.

“It makes me so uncomfortable. All I think about is my messy hair and pale face and tired eyes. I don’t want you to see me looking so …so haggard, so unkept. At least let me comb my hair or put on some lipstick”. She was lying on the bed, wrapped in their worn comforter wearing her thread-bare sweat pants.

“But you don’t understand. That’s not what I see” he responded with softness in his eyes.

“What I see is not dictated by the images captured through my eyes rather I see through the lens of my heart in an geography of swirling memories and deeply felt emotions. The hair, which you call messy, brings me back to the weekend sailing in Belize when I could barely see the content expression on your face as those long blond locks swirled in the wind. I can almost feel the moisture of the ocean now just as we did together celebrating love, enjoying each other fully.”

“Your pale face is the same one that held my mother’s hand as she lay taking her final breaths in the Hospice bed. You read to her and reassured her, and stayed with her to the very end ensuring that neither she nor I would be alone during her final breaths.”

“… and those beautiful tired eyes … the same ones that stayed up all night quizzing me as I frantically prepared for the BAR. Not once did you complain and not once did you let me believe I could fail”.

“So no I cannot stop staring. Every moment I spend looking at you brings me to amazement that are with me. Every vision gives me a deeper love for the life we have built together ”.