eyes wide open

We look into the mirror each day. We style our hair, donn our hijaab, and we do whatever we can to perfect our outer beauty. Our physical appearance. The face pf the person that goes out and works, studies, that interacts with many people at a time, at work, places of study, shopping centres. Have you ever actually made a mental note of the amount of people we see in any given week and the people who see us. And what is it that they see. Or more accurately what is it that we perceive that they see.

Do they see what we see when we look in the mirror?

Someone asked me today whether it bothers me that my right eye is half closed and that I have to wear spectacles. And my reply was that yes it did in the beginning and then I realised that there is nothing that I have been doing that I do less of that whatever vanity I possessed had already been stripped by my loss of hair during chemotherapy, that when you battling for your life, that a half closed eye as she put it is completely insignificant and that I think of it as half open.

And then I realised that she always covers her chin with her Hijaab and I asked her, why do you then close your chin and she lifted her hijaab to reveal a chin covered in deep scars from teenage acne. She further relayed how this has affected her ability to do things, how this acne has always stopped her from interacting with people, that she is afraid of rejection, of people staring.

And then I realised that there are so many people out there just like her, who limits their potential because of physical imperfections or is it emotional imperfections, I wonder.

Yes I have been stared at, questioned, and my blunt reply is always the same. Three words I have cancer. Does it stop me from going out, from speaking in public from interacting, no it inspires me. It inspires me when someone says, " hey your eye is half closed" and I am reminded how open it really is. Because even though most people have eyes that open their eyes are completely closed.

That some people have acne that they cover, should they not rather cover their hearts to shield it with Taqwa. Should they rather not look in the mirror and instead of seeing the imperfections see the perfections.


So what is it that people see when we interact with them. Do we let them see the face we chose to wear that morning or the one who looks into the mirror with closed eyes.

So I go out and I interact with eyes wide open.