We sit across from one another at a little diner. The benches are real wood with ducks and hunting dogs carved into them and the cushions are a faded burgundy vinyl. Country western music plays out the speakers but we aren’t really listening. I’m eating eggs over-medium with hashbrowns and she has French toast and bacon. All around are moderately quiet conversations and the clinking of forks on plates and spoons in mugs. Mine has coffee; hers has hot chocolate with whipped cream. Her eyes are blue. So blue. Blue like the ocean on a clear summer afternoon. The blue in blue of the ever-deepening sky. They remind me of something, those blue eyes. They remind me of carefree days, of laughter, of skipping barefoot, of endless questions, of hugs and kisses and dreams within dreams. They remind me of empty arms, nights of tears, wishful longing, stoic resolution, and then that heartfelt prayer when everything changed. Her eyes are so blue and so beautiful my heart skips a beat and I pause, held captive for a moment because she’s an absolute miracle in a world that desperately needs miracles and overuses the word without any real faith. She blinks and the spell is broken and I look out the window and she says, “what’s wrong, mama?” And I smile and look into her blue blue eyes again and I say, “I love you.”

tara caribou | ©2022