When Your Spirit Takes a Beating
Her eyelashes were the first thing I noticed when I held her close, that long-awaited bundle swaddled in stripes of blue, pink, and white hospital cotton. Those gently curved swaths of inky delicateness were so long and full they didn’t look real. The tips reached almost to her dark eyebrows when her fierce blue eyes were open. Now, at 15, both landscapes lie tattered and barren. The marks of her autoimmune disease have staked their claim; all her bottom lashes are gone, and one eyebrow flaunts a naked gap the size of her pinky finger. The bareness is foreign to…