“Nice eyes!” The woman ahead of me at the post office was sending money overseas to her family. She was dressed in a bright green Kameez under a Kanuk overcoat. Obviously from the Indian subcontinent.

I said “Pardon me?”

“You have nice blue eyes.” she clarified. “And kind eyes. Where I come from we all have dark eyes.” I said “My wife was born in India and she says the same thing about her eyes.” I told her what I would have told Sharon: that she should be thankful for her eyes, they see! I also told her it was a nice way to end off 2022, to be complimented by a pretty lady.

She apologized for the long wait and told me she was sending money home, and I told her I wasn’t in a hurry and that my package was part of a funny mistake. I told her this story:

My wife’s mother is Welsh and quite elderly. She has one surviving brother still in Wales whose wife had sent her a gift via us, as my mother-in law’s address has recently changed. As Jennie was opening her parcel and then the wrapped gift inside she saw an address book. Upon opening the address book, my mother-in-law was confused. “There are names and numbers already in here.” We quickly figured out that her sister-in-law had wrapped her address book up in the present and sent it to Canada by mistake. Everybody had a good giggle over this miscue. Sharon fired off a message to one of her Welsh cousins who confirmed that his mum had wondered where her address book was and had turned the house upside down looking for it. Sharon repackaged the book and I took it to the post office this morning.

Everyone within earshot at the post office had a good giggle and we went our merry ways.

On the way home I reflected on how close we came this year to Sharon almost losing the sight in one eye, the death of her father who was legally blind for the last few years of his life. I was grateful for my eyesight, all the doctors (including my brother-in-law) who took such care to get her into and through a difficult surgery. We so often take our senses for granted in our day to day doings. I am thankful for this lady in the Post Office for bringing my attention to bear on something that is so important to me and for which I am grateful.

I remembered this poem I wrote in reply to Sharon saying to me in 2017 that I was lucky to have such nice blue eyes and that her eyes were “ordinary”. Her eyes are especially beautiful in my eyes. All eyes are beautiful; they are conduits to the world and facilitate our movement in it, and our appreciation of it.

ORDINARY EYES

You say your eyes 
are ordinary

Ordinary eyes....
Melanin loaded....
Common....

Mine are a fluke of 
Tyndall scattering
in the stroma
and larger
deposits of collagen

But they see

Mine see yours 
Yours see mine 

unique, oblique, boutique
probes and globes 

A sight for sorry eyes
Anything but common