Her younger sister, Lot, never asked about it either. Lot sometimes gets mad because I cheat during her “sleep game.” We pretend to be asleep, and you’re supposed to close your eyes. But since my prosthesis can’t move, I can’t close that eye.
My daughter—Maan and Lot’s mother—looks at me, and I can tell that Maan’s question has surprised her, too. I give a reassuring nod and tell Maan that I had surgery on my eye a long time ago. There’s a silence, and then Maan asks a few follow-up questions: “Why did you have surgery? Did you have blood? Did it hurt? Did you have to throw up? Did you get better?” I give her the simplest explanation I can come up with. My eye was sick and couldn’t be fixed anymore. That’s why I got a “fake eye” that can’t move and that I can’t see with. But now I’m not in pain anymore, and I’m completely better.
Maan and Lot have been listening intently. Maan sighs and nods approvingly. Lot points her little finger at my epithesis and says, “The eye is stuck”—apparently, she suddenly understands why I cheat at her sleeping game!
The next day, my daughter tells me that the girls understood the story and are busy playing hospital. They’re treating teddy bears and dolls that suddenly have all sorts of ailments. They have fevers, bleeding wounds, broken legs, sore throats, and so on. “But…,” my daughter says with a laugh, “you’re going to find what’s wrong with her favorite doll absolutely hilarious.” A little while later, she sends me a photo of the poor little doll that’s had surgery on her eye!
Anita Hol-Bubeck
