I’ve Survived Wars and Buried Brothers Without a Tear — But When a Barefoot Stranger Touched My Blind Daughter’s Eye in a Broken Park, and She Looked at Me for the First Time, I Fell to My Knees

I wanted to laugh. Or shout. Or pick him up and scare the life out of him for even suggesting it. Seventeen specialists hadn’t found anything, but this barefoot kid thought he had?

“You touch her,” I growled, “and this ends bad for you.”

He swallowed hard. His hands trembled, but he held them up, empty. “If I don’t, she won’t see. Please. Ten seconds.”

I don’t know why I believed him. Maybe it was the way he was afraid of me but more afraid of being wrong. Maybe it was the way Clara whimpered again and pressed her knuckles into her eye.

I stepped aside.

“Ten seconds,” I said. “I’m right here.”

He knelt in front of her like this was sacred ground. Asked her gently to tilt her face toward the sun. Told her not to blink.

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