His Brown Eyes Told Me So

I’ve seen my father cry but once: when his father passed away. Salt water poured from his sleep-deprived eyes; bawling like a snotty-nosed two year old who had been put on time-out for the first time. His tears were the only indication that in his chest, there was a heart. A H.E.A.R.T.: a

Healthy

Emotional

Agent that

Renders

Truth...

...something I’ve always thought he was born without… convinced he was one of many who walked this world lugging around an ice-box in lieu of a soul. But I was proved wrong that day. On that day, his eyes bled with emotion-- emotion that played the submissive role throughout all my childhood and adolescent years.

And in those years, my father and I never got along. Two stubborn bulls ready to take out the other without a hint of backing down was how we bonded. Lack of communication coupled with battered pieces of flesh and psyche kept us in opposition. The voices of my classmates lamenting on how great a time they had at the Father-Daughter dance, boasting about how their father came to a game they didn’t even play in, showing off their weekly allowance for washing a couple dishes rung in my ears. They were “Daddy’s Little Girls,” and I, I was his nightmare.

Or so it seemed… on certain days.

There were days, though, when we were civil to one other; and as I got older it became more and more frequent: chit-chatting in the backyard, letting the sun’s rays kiss our cheeks. Such a pleasurable moment it was, to be able to connect with my father on an emotional level. In this moment, all guards are down, and I cherish it.

My father is a great man; but behind the eyes of every great man there is a hidden emptiness; and his emptiness was in his heart, or lack there of...

Or so I believed.

I just never knew he had a heart. I never knew he could have human feelings…until his father died. It just took a tragic event to release his true colors from his brown eyes.

Jennifer Vassel