“Let us see! Please!” I demanded. “No, you will just scream and say eww,” my grandmother said. My sisters and cousins and I begged and pleaded again and again. My grandma repeated “No!” until finally, she relented. “All right, I’ll do it if you promise not to squeal.” We promised. But in the bathroom, when she used a little grey suction cup to remove her glass eye, and we looked into her familiar face with a jarring, gaping hole in it, we all screamed and ran away down the back hallway. We never asked again, and she certainly never offered.
Heather Maat is a mama, a wife, and a writer of Creative Nonfiction. She calls Calgary, Alberta, home, but doesn’t mind leaving to travel. Instagram: @heatherlmaat