On her first birthday, I sat on the bathroom floor with her in my lap. The cake was in the oven. She was wearing a paper crown from the party store. And her left eye was swollen shut, a yellow-green discharge seeping from the corner. The duct was no longer just blocked. It was infected.
Liora would squirm at first, then eventually submit, her wet, unblocked right eye watching me with an expression that felt far too knowing for an infant. She was storing evidence. The day I finally broke her, she would present it.
I named her Liora, which means “my light.” It felt cruelly ironic those first few weeks. While other parents soothed their wailing infants, I found myself staring into Liora’s left eye, where a persistent, pearl-like crust had begun to form. A sticky, amber seal that glued her lashes together every morning. The doctor dabbed at it with a warm cloth and said, “Blocked tear duct. Very common. Ninety percent clear up by their first birthday.”
She held up her scratched palm. “Mama. Hurt.”
I didn’t fix her. I just stopped breaking her long enough for her to fix herself.
The first time my daughter cried, nothing came out.