I’ve never considered myself a people person. Most of the time I’m too busy sifting through the puzzle pieces of erratic thoughts and ideas in my mind to be bothered by other people’s lives and problems that don’t concern me. However, I’ve always considered myself perceptive to the pain that people try so hard to cover up. Their eyes show me the deterioration of the wall that they try to build when they think that no one will care about their misery, they show they who they really are. Like a piece of white paper, I can always see the damage that has been done no matter how hard they try to smooth out their heartache.

My sister has the most tired grey-green eyes I have ever seen. I remember when I was still in my days of believing in princesses being saved and happily ever afters, thinking that her, being a free spirited teenager at the time, was better than any princess in the movies. When her eyes were still filled to the brim with energy, when she was still filled with hope. And when I was nine and she told us that she was having a baby, I was envious that she was about to have her happy ending, having a family with her prince charming. It didn’t phase me when they found out that the child would have a birth defect called gastroschisis, and they tried to explain as simply as they could what it was and how he would be fine.

But then he wasn’t fine. Only ten days after he was born, a miniscule fraction of the life he deserved, he passed away from surgery complications. My bright, lively sister had her heart ripped out of her that day, leaving a broken shell of the jubilant mother to be she was the last time i had seen her. When she came home from the hospital, with my parents on either side of her helping her through the door, I barely recognized her. Messy hair, pale face, glassy eyes that stared past you like they were looking for a way to get to her beloved child, it was alarming to see her in such a feeble state. Like the frail brown leaves in the fall, just about to disintegrate and blow away with even the lightest breeze. For months we helped my fragile glass sister with almost everything she did. She slowly began to seem like she was building herself up again. She started talking to her friends, went back to work, and over the course of a year, she was back to her life.

Now she has a two year old daughter that constantly keeps her on her toes and going. She works hard to give her everything she could possibly want, and I see how much love and happiness Charlotte gives her. Sometimes I’ll hear her laugh like I remember she used to with her friends when I was little, boisterous and uncontrollable. It makes me hope that her heart has healed with time and love. But her eyes still show the pain and heartache she’s endured in her short life, something that she can’t erase no matter how hard she tries. And this is how I realized that not all princesses can be saved, and not everyone can have a happily ever after.