facing life and death - with only one eye

For as long as I knew her, she had only one eye. This never really bothered me because I had never seen her with her pair of eyes intact. The porcelaine marble placed where her other eye had once been sometimes confused my friends though, when we were kids. It never looked in the same direction as her real eye, and not even the colour matched. Some people found it a bit frightening.

I'm talking about my grandma. - and her constant dilemma.

I remember very well the first time I ever saw her take the ocular prosthesis out to clean it. I was eight or nine years old and stayed at my grandparents house by the lake over night. The incident was unintentional, I just happened to sneak by the bedroom, but this was very disturbing to my grandmother. In reality, I saw almost nothing, except that her eyelid for once fell down, to shut the hole where "the strange marble" normally was situated. Usually the prosthesis was always visible, also when she was asleep - because she couldn't blink.

Of course we looked her in the healthy eye when we talked to her. Everybody who knew her did.

My grandma lost her eye when she was thirtyseven, in an accident that sounds almost too cliché to be true. Unfortunately it was all very real. She was stabbed in the eye by a raging cow, it destroyed the entire eye globe, aswell as some of the tissue surrounding it. She was in other words seriously injured and almost died from a clostridium tetani infection. In the midst of it all my mother, who was then twelve years old prayed to God, begging him not to take her mother away from her. "God then promised me that my mother would stay with me for many, many years to come."

Grandma never liked to be photographed. It was always the same - christmas, birthdays, anniversaries of any kind - she would shun away from the camera. In my grandparents home there was only one photo on which she appeared: the wedding photo of her and grandpa. In that picture they were both looking down, slightly to the side, not really revealing much of their faces. I think she prefered this photo, to not be so strongly reminded of how she once used to look.

My grandmother was not vain. She didn't like jewellery and for the longest time I thought it was because my grandparents lived a simple life as farmers, far out on the countryside. I thought she didn't care, until I one day during my teenage years wanted her to try a nice necklace on and she abruptly emphasized, in a way that was untypical for her: "Oh, what good would it do?! It's wasted on me, I have only one eye!"

I loved my grandmother. We were close friends, not just related. She was smart, honest and kind. She cared for everybody and prayed for everyone she met. Anyone who really knew her would agree she saw things and situations more clearly with her only eye than most people do with both. She believed in God, trusted in his his word and looked forward to meet her savior face to face one day.

I sat with her at the hospital when she ended her days on earth. God kept his promise to the twelve year old praying girl and let us all keep our dear grandma until she almost turned 90. She was then tiny, tiny, tiny... and when her kidneys and lungs collapsed there was nothing more to do.

Some hours before she went into unconciousness she was no longer able to speak, but she was looking at a simple neckless made from plastic pearls I happened to wear that day. With her hands shaking she smiled a little and reached to touch it. "It looks a bit homemade, don't You think?" I asked her. "Do You want to borrow it, grandma?" She silently nodded and I gave it to her. "... because You're soon going to the great big party in heaven, You know? Where You will see Your loved ones that have gone before You...

... and there You will have Your other eye back. I know. And You know.

Of course You need a neckless, grandma."

She deeply sighed and nodded her head once more. She was content.

The night after she gave up breathing. She just silently let go of her old body, but I immediately had this feeling she was everywhere, all around me, rather than gone. I still have.

Last weekend, going through some old photos and documents of hers, I found these. One photo of her as a teenager together with her older sister and her bridal portrait. I was incredible happy to find these photos as I feel they portray her, and her being, as I always experienced her - despite the obvious.

Bright and alert.
Funny and smart.
Loving and kind.

Beautiful... and complete.