The World Without Her Eyes

I remember everything — except what matters.

The morning I turned ten, there were four breadcrumbs clustered together on the kitchen counter from the toast my mother had made me. The aroma of a cake baking in the oven filled the kitchen. With her wearily happy eyes, she looked at me with a tender, warm smile and told me happy birthday, even though I could tell she’d gotten home late last night from her shift. I looked at her with bright, beaming eyes and told her, “Thank you.”

The bus that picked me up that day was number thirteen. The driver wore an old-fashioned pair of glasses resting at the tip of his nose and a silver watch, cracked, that caught the light and threw it across the ceiling in sprinting ovals. I can still recount the words from the spelling test that day — treatment, memory, absence — and the way my pencil rasped as I tried to erase the second r.

I remember that morning perfectly. I remember every morning.

But today, when I most need to see her, her face is gone. The details remain, but not her eyes, not her smile — only fragments, and an ache where her memory should be.

I grew older, and my memory grew sharper — an unwanted gift polished by time itself.

People envy it. They smile and say, “You never forget anything.”

But they don’t understand how heavy remembering can ache when forgetting is mercy.

Most days, my mind hums like an overworked machine. Every object in my apartment has its rightful place, down to the degree. The exact shade of the sky of every morning, afternoon, and evening I have ever lived. The outfit I wore on my first day of school, even the color of my underwear.

Some memories are small; others don’t let go. The newspaper headline that ran the morning my mother’s heart stopped. The time that the paramedics arrived, and the exact words I told them. I remember all of it. None of it fades. None of it forgives.

I’ve seen doctors — specialists, they call themselves — the kind that study memory like a puzzle they think they can solve. They ask questions, run scans, and watch me recall every conversation I’ve ever had in my life. These so-called specialists call it superior autobiographical memory, as if a fancy name can make it sound like a gift from God.

One doctor told me I should be proud of it. Another called it a miracle of the brain. The third doctor, the most honest of them, sighed and told me there was no cure. He said that the mind learns to hold on or to let go, but mine never learned how to do the second part.

I tried meditation, hypnosis, and long hours in therapy rooms that smell like mint and sterilized hope. Nothing quiets the noise, and I leave each session more disappointed than the last, with a new memory that I will never be able to forget, even if I tried to. The way the clock ticks, the gray stone carpet, and the tired look that the doctor gives me when he says that I should try to live in the present.

But how can I tell him the present doesn’t stay still? It becomes the past too quickly — just another page added to the story that I carry inside my head.

I tried to bring her back, the only way I knew how — through precision.

The kitchen in my apartment became a replica of hers: the same pink-tinted floral curtains, the same wooden spoons in the chipped blue jar. I found the same brand of bread she used to buy, the one that left four perfect crumbs when toasted. I rearranged everything until the room felt right — until it felt like the kitchen I remembered from back then. The one I came down to every morning to say good morning and give her a hug. The same one where she cooked every day, no matter how tired she was or how long her night shifts lasted. I rearranged the room until the air smelled like the morning she last said my name.

For a moment, I almost believed she was there. I could hear the kettle whistling and the toast pop up from the toaster. I could feel the faint vibration of her footsteps on the tile, and the echoes that once filled the kitchen as she hurried to make me breakfast before school. But when I tried to picture her face, the image collapsed. The light caught on the counter — too bright — washing everything in white. I could remember the color of the walls, the sound of her voice, the warmth of her hand guiding mine — but not her eyes. The harder I tried, the faster she disappeared.

The more I remembered, the less of her there was. My memory gave me the world, but not her.

The smell of toast filled the room, and suddenly I wasn’t here anymore.

I was ten again, sitting at the kitchen counter on the pale blue high stools my mother used to keep, my feet swinging above the floor. The morning light was soft then, not blinding. It slid across the counter and caught her long, flowing hair as she moved between the sink and the oven. She hummed to herself — the same song she used to sing to me every night before bed.

“You’ll be late for school,” she said, her voice light, tired but still kind. She handed me a plate with toast a little more burnt than usual and scrambled eggs that didn’t look quite cooked through. “Eat fast, sweetheart. I have to go to work early today.”

I remember the clock above the fridge ticking a little faster that morning, the sound echoing in my head — as if it knew something that I didn’t. She reached for her chipped ocean-blue coffee mug, took a sip, and set it down. A single drop of coffee slid down the mug and spilled onto the counter. Then she crouched until our eyes met. “Don’t forget your lunch,” she said softly, “and don't stay up too late tonight.”

I told her I wouldn’t. I lied.

She brushed a crumb off my cheek and smiled the way only she could — half apology, half promise — before standing to grab her coat. The front door opened. The light flooded the kitchen, gold and gentle — just like her.

She turned back, framed by the golden light, and smiled again. “Bye, baby. I love you.”

“Bye, Mom,” I said.

The door closed. The clock kept ticking, the sound growing louder with every passing second. I remember the crumbs cooling on the counter, the toast growing cold, the hum of the refrigerator filling in the silence she left behind.

I’ve been listening to that silence ever since.