Trying to organize my back-load of photos that need to be scrapbooked (almost 7 years behind..as long as my daughter has been born…hmmm) I found this photo of my daughter as a baby.  I think she is about 5 months old in this photo.  She had some cheeks, huh?  You know I just ate on them all day long.

As you can see, her eyes were blue, really, really blue (forgive my clumsy red-eye reduction attempt).  Two days after she was born–when she decided to open her eyes–the first thing we said was “Her eyes are blue!”  It was a shock to us as it was to everyone else.  And boy have we heard it through the years!  Her eyes turned green at about a year old and there they have stayed, but we still get the same reaction, even today.  People look at her and comment on her eyes; then they look at me, with my brown eyes.  If I am without my husband, sometimes they don’t say anything because it is possible that her father is the green-eyed parent.  But if we are all together, they look at her, look at me, look at my husband (with his brown eyes), look back at her, and always ask the same question: “So where did she get her eyes?”   Like we bought them at the store on sale somewhere.   The answer that I give, that her grandmother has green eyes, is met with skepticism.  People: I have videotape to prove that I am the one who brought her into the world in my living room on a sunny fall day.  I don’t think anyone wants me to pull that out!

Genes are funny things.  My husband’s mother was born with blue eyes that turned green, just like my daughter’s.  Both of her two boys have brown eyes and all of her siblings have brown eyes.  The green-eyed gene was waiting to make an appearance once again with the birth of her second grandchild.

Folks mean well, I know, with their comments.  But it makes my daughter feel self-conscious that people question her place in our family because she stands out among our trio of brown eyes.  It doesn’t help that my son basically has a replica of my face on his slightly smaller body.

My hope is that as she grows, she will not listen to what people say about her eyes or hair or skin, or that she doesn’t resemble anyone in particular in the family.  Instead, she’s got a little bit of everyone in her beautiful face.  She long as she realizes that she is deeply loved in this fabric of a rich, complex heritage, that is all that matters.

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