My daughter was born blind.
People always say she’ll never see how beautiful the world is.
But one day, she touched my face and said, “I can see you, Mommy. You’re smiling right now.”
I froze—because that was the first time I’d smiled all day.
She traced my cheeks with her little fingers.
Then she said, “When you’re sad, your skin feels heavy.”
I didn’t know what to say.
I asked her how she knew I was smiling.
She said, “I can feel your happy. It moves like sunshine.”
I couldn’t hold back my tears.
She wiped one away and whispered, “Now it’s raining on your face.”
At four years old, she was describing emotions like colors.
Once, I asked her what blue felt like.
She said, “Blue is when you sing to me before bed.”
What about red?
“Red is when I laugh too hard and my heart dances.”
She said yellow was when I twirled her around the living room.
And gray was when Daddy had to work late and I got quiet.
She didn’t need eyes to see love.
She didn’t need sight to read people.
She always knew when someone was lying.
Or when someone needed a hug but wouldn’t ask.
At school, her teachers said she made the other kids calmer.
They’d fight, then she’d walk over and hold their hands.
Once, I found her talking to a bird outside.
She said, “It’s lonely. But it likes my voice.”
I cried again.
She asked if I was okay.
I told her yes.
She touched my face.
And smiled.
“You’re lying a little,” she said.
She always knew.
She told me once, “People think I can’t see, but I just see different.”
She said her world was made of sound, touch, heartbeat, and feeling.
And somehow, it felt bigger than mine.
One day, I asked if she wished she could see.
She thought for a long time.
Then she said, “Only if I can still see this way too.”
That’s when I realized—my daughter doesn’t need to open her eyes.
She’s already opened mine.