As I rode to the doctor’s office the other day for my post-cataract surgery visit, I sat in the passenger seat and looked at the face of my friend Larry. I’ve known him since 1975 when he and his wife, Terri, knocked on the door of our first subdivision home and asked us to join the civic club. I was looking because the new clarity of my vision is such that faces in particular are breath-takingly sharp, and it almost makes me cry when I look at the faces of my friends now. Their beauty takes my breath away.

I don’t think Larry knew I was staring, it would have embarrassed him, but I stared anyhow and thought of all our years together, the things we’d done, the places we’d seen, the laughter and music we’d shared. It was all right there in that face, in every clear line, and inch of skin, and I could see it all. And I thought, how outrageously perfect it was. And I thought of my wife, who in the latter stages of her dementia, would invariably reach out and touch the face of the people she met, with love and affection. She was seeing them, really seeing them.

I want to do that now. But I can’t. So, I just stare at the faces of the ones I love. I look at the detail and think how fine they look as they laugh, or smile, or just talk. And I love that I can see their faces with such clarity now. I literally feel like a blind man suddenly gifted with vision, discovering through sight the faces I knew previously only through sound. It’s a thrill, and I hope it stays with me, because of all the things I can see these days with clarity, those faces are what I most enjoy.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale