"Mom!"

"Mom!"

I kept yelling, but I don't think she heard me over the clunking of the washer in spin cycle.
All I could see was red. Not fire engine red, but the red of light diffused by my eyelids, which were cemented shut at my eyelashes. Every morning for several weeks after my double eye operation, my eyes would secrete liquid that coated my eyelashes and, when mixed with air, had a glue-like effect. All a part of having tired eyes, I suppose.

Mom always said I had tired eyes. She didn't like the term 'lazy.' "Your eyes aren't lazy, they're just tired."

I heard her steps on the wood floor and the familiar sound of the water from the bathroom sink softly hitting the fresh washcloth. The faucet handle squeaked as she turned it off. "I'll be just a moment."

The feeling of the cold water against my face tingled as my eyelashes slowly un-cemented. At first, just a small gap of sight, but then the gap widened until the only evidence that remained was a little bit of sleep in the corners of my eyes. It seemed like it happened for a long time, but time is relevant to experience. When you're five, the world is vast. All I knew is that it happened every morning.

The moment I started school things got worse. Not only did I have to contend with the morning ritual, I had patches.

The bottom of my plastic tote was filled with them. Not the kind you sew on a jacket or on the gaping hole worn through the knee of your Sears-Roebuck Toughskins, which were, by the way, guaranteed never to wear out, but the brown, cloth-like optical patches that were more like eye-sized band-aids than a corrective device. The doctor told mom that for the lazy-eye operation to be a complete success, I would have to wear them.

Every day before entering Emerson Elementary School, we kindergarteners lined up against the worn red brick wall, in order -- I was behind Jimmy Peruski -- and I would look behind me, with my bad eye, to make sure mom was out of sight. As soon as I was sure she was gone, I would slowly pull the adhesive-soaked edges of the patch away, being careful not to pull off any more of my eyebrow. I had gotten used to the cement factor, but losing my eyebrow by this tortuous method was quite another matter.

Even at the age of five, I knew that, for all practical purposes, being blind in one eye was not the best way to go through life. It's not that I couldn't see at all. With the good eye covered, words on paper became muddled black lines on a white background. Faces looked like blank patches of white or brown with a sometimes nose or a Cycloptic eye and a swatch of some color of hair on top -- depending on the amount of light, of course. While my good eye revealed the big bright world, the bad eye revealed the shadows. At home it didn't matter much, but at school it was disastrous.

Our class project the Thursday before Mother's Day was to create a construction-paper card with a three-dimensional tulip sticking out of the front. I could see just enough to be able to fold the paper, but Vickie, one of my classmates, volunteered to do the rest of the work when she saw the tears in my eyes. I would never outright ask for help on anything. The smartest girl in class with two functional eyes, Vickie quickly folded the paper to form the flower and wrote "Happy Mother's Day" beneath the red tulip. Upon receiving the card not made by me, my mother was so ecstatic that her one-eyed daughter made this lovely creation for her that I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't make it all by myself. It was the first time in my life I ever felt guilty.

It became obvious that the band-aid patches weren't staying on long at school when mom opened my plastic-handled see-through school bag and found twenty-seven of them glued to the bottom of it. Better it than my eyebrow, I figured. Mom tried to figure other things. It was at this time that she tried to make wearing the patch a fun thing. Instead of ruining my sight at school, she decided, with the doctor's permission, I would wear the patch at home.

In keeping with the fun theme, she bought me a black pirate's patch -- the kind with the black elastic strap like the real pirates in red-striped shirts wore on TV. It worked out quite well, for both of us, until she realized that I was moving the patch to cover my bad eye so I could see what I was doing. Sword fighting -- even with pretend swords -- can be dangerous if you can't see.

We went round and round for the rest of that summer until it all came to an end. My little sister was born and, all of a sudden, the status of my eyesight did not seem so important. In fact, mom seemed to give up. She didn't bother me about wearing the patch anymore. Perhaps she figured that if I was happy with one good eye then that was good enough for her. She never brought up the issue again for several years.

It was the mid 1970s. Elton John was singing about Jesus Freaks out in the streets and my parents were two of the biggest ones you'd ever seen. Dad's neatly trimmed mustache and goutee became an unruly mass of dark beard, a fitting accompaniment to his faded blue jean overalls. He looked like Grizzly Adams. Mom's hair continued its straight descent all the way down to her waist. She wore it neatly tied back in a ponytail every day and never wore a spot of make-up. It was part of the revolution. Part of dropping from society and getting back to nature -- except for the fact that we lived in a working-class neighborhood in northwest Detroit and dad worked on the assembly line at Ford six days a week. But they had aspirations.

Attending church services had always been a sporadic event, something set aside for holidays and whenever Mom felt the pressure from her parents to give us a proper upbringing. Dad wasn't too much into attending church until his younger brother, traumatized from his stint in Vietnam, purposely drove his motorcycle into a tree at 70 mph. After that, he felt that we all needed as much saving as we could get. Disenchanted with the Lutheran church we attended, they packed us up one Sunday morning and took us to the Lord's House. Unlike the Lutheran church, we didn't even have to dress up. The dress code was to come as you are, because the Lord was interested in our souls and not our clothes. It was a blue jean church -- the first I'd ever seen, and that was fine with me.

The Lord's House consisted of two buildings. The first, a former Methodist church from the 1800s, stood at the corner of a city intersection. This church was reserved for the children's programs, most of which were held in the basement. Upon descending the stairs, it smelled like mold and old bathroom. One of the classrooms was unusable due to flooding, and the restrooms did not work most of the time. Though an inconvenience, folks worked around the problems and ran a fairly successful program. The sanctuary upstairs was used for children’s events. After our half hour bible story lessons, we went to the sanctuary for singing, puppets, and prayers.

The adult sanctuary was in an adjacent building that had served as a movie house during the Great Depression. Pews were nonexistent. Churchgoers had the treat of sitting in individual movie seats made of wood -- no padding to speak of. Many of the seats would creak as you sat in them; some of them were unusable due to large cracks that had splintered off sometime between last Sunday and 1935. Instead of having an altar, like most churches, the Lord's House had a genuine movie stage. An old upright piano was wedged up against the wall on the right, a small pulpit was right up in the center, and behind the pulpit stood a drum kit, three amplifiers, two guitars and a bass guitar. Above the stage hung a banner -- a reminder -- with great white letters on a red background that read, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23."

At The Lord's House we never sang a hymn. Church songs were sung to the sounds of a full-fledged hippie rock band. We sang "Power in the Blood" over and over again until churchgoers were ready to burst, "There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the lamb. There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the lamb." Church leaders were from the old school where the repetition of drill and kill was king, but no one seemed to mind with the skeleton of free-form rock music to hold it all together. The crowd was progressively hyped until they were at the brink of orgasm.

At least 500 of them stood in a static state of excitement. The air filled with the overwhelming smell of perfume and cologne. They worked hard stomping on the floor, clapping hands, and raising perspiration-soaked arms to the sky shouting, "Praise the Lord," "Hallelujah!" and "Praise God!" Then one strong voice emerged from the sea of chatter, speaking a language that sounded Hellenic. Mom said it was tongues. All eyes closed, and the air was heavy in anticipation of an answer from God -- a translation of the sacred language. Sometimes an answer came quickly. At other times, there was no answer at all. On rare occasion, there would be two completely different answers. Regardless of the answer, though, the response was always another five or ten minutes of "Praise the Lords" because people were honored that they were in His presence.

Brother John was an entertainer in preacher’s clothing who had a gift for being able to sense exactly when to make an entrance. Once God had spoken, his duty was to fill in the details. At the most opportune moment, he would strut his way to the pulpit, his light blue denim leisure suit soaked dark blue in strategic places. His shirt, unbuttoned to mid-chest, revealed a four-inch long thick pewter cross on a thin leather strap matting his forest of glistening black and gray chest hair.
"The spirit of God is with us to-night-ah. Can I hear an ay-men?" At least half the crowd responded to his southern-inflected plea as he continued into a prayer, raising his right arm toward the sky, looking into the red spotlight that reflected off of his rose-tinted glasses. "Lord-ah, we have come to you today to praise your name-ah. We have faith in you Lord to do your will-ah, for thy will be done-ah." Occasionally, he would stop to wipe his soaked forehead. The ten-minute prayer led to the 90-minute sermon that was heavy on Bible thumping. The brother's oversized brown leather Thompson Bible was broken in well, the result of an infinite number of poundings during sermons on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

Mom and Dad believed in The Lord's House. They were accepted. There were programs for the kids. It was the perfect place to get away from home several times a week without having to hire a babysitter. We went to church twice on Sundays, once in the morning and once in the evening, and on Wednesdays. Tuesdays were strictly for dad because he got to lead the song portion of the service on that day, though he always complained that the best musicians never made it on Tuesdays, leaving him with drummers who would lose the beat and guitar players who weren't quite sure when to change to the next chord. But they loved his voice.

The best part about church was the fellowship room. Some days we spent more time hanging out there than in the sanctuary. The fellowship room was in the basement of the theater. After every service, coffee, tea, and snacks were provided -- all by the generosity of members who donated goods from week to week. I filled my pockets with mixed nuts -- a never-ending free supply. I ate nuts while I learned the finer points of playing chess from Mike, two years my senior. While our parents caffeined up and discussed the Bible, Mike and I battled, re-dubbing our game 'suicide chess' because we preferred knocking out pieces as opposed to making strategic moves for check.

I grew to like the hippie church. I made friends, loved the music portion of the service, and tolerated the thumping sermons. Except for the occasional trip to the eye doctor to hear the usual, "Well, if she's OK with it, then there's really nothing more I can do," my eye problem ceased to be a problem. I was the kid with one good eye -- not the one with a bad eye, or the one who's just about blind. Well, I was that kid until one particular evening.

The Wednesday night prayer service was completely filled. Folding chairs were brought in to help with the overcrowding, but attempts to seat everyone were futile. I was safe in my chair, but I looked around and saw people with crutches, others in wheelchairs -- it was like a hospital waiting room.
Brother John's sermon was poignant that evening. His black polyester suit and jungle-patterned tie spoke of the seriousness. The devil is the one who brings illness and disease. God is the healer. Christ healed the lepers with the touch of his hand.

"Now, I want all of you who are in need of healing-ah, come forward. Feel the spirit of the Lord-ah drawing on your heart-ah."

And they slowly began. There were so many, the space between the first row and the stage, no more than six or seven feet, filled up quickly. The brother moved from one person to the next, laying his hands on the sick, looking toward heaven.

"May the healing power of Jesus-ah anoint you."

Behind the brother lay those for whom he had prayed -- flat on the floor like Popsicle sticks glued together to form a makeshift life raft.

Then I felt a tap. It was mom. I don't know if the guilt of the last several years had become unbearable or if she thought she would give it one last-ditch effort, but she led me up to the front of the church.

I couldn't see much past the three or four feet around me because my height fell short of that of the average ten year old, but the adults surrounding me had their hands raised and were praying, some loudly, thanking God and asking Him to bring his healing power.

The crowd in front of me parted, and Brother John came right up to me. His glasses looked dark. When he smiled, a gold cap on his upper right incisor sparkled against the drab yellow of his coffee-stained teeth.

He put his hands on my head. The smell of his bad cologne was overpowering – enough to make you ill if you weren’t already. His sweaty palm nearly covered my good eye, he prayed real hard. I closed my eyes as tight as I could and I prayed to God the hardest I ever had in my life -- harder than at Christmas and harder than when my great grandma died -- and I knew something had to happen.
As he finished the prayer, he released his hands from my head like he was passing a basketball. My first reaction was to fall backward like the other Popsicle sticks who were still lying on the floor, but I held my balance and remained standing. My head felt warm and my heart was pounding. I slowly opened my right eye, the good eye. I almost wanted them to stay closed like they had so many mornings before. Then I opened my left eye.

Mom looked down at me and my tears told her the outcome.

Nothing. My left eye was exactly the same.