My Long Lost Rachel

Who is this girl looking at me with glassy eyes? She looks familiar but I can’t place her just now. I seem to recall those eyes being in a child’s face in the backspace of my memory. She was a darling, the one I remember. Full of life and energy and funny words in her private vocabulary. There is just something about this woman here now that haunts me for some reason. I have seen this effect before, when drugs have taken over the life inside and destroyed the looks on the outside;
Empty…the only description I can imagine…Empty.
No fear of the effects this is having on the body.
No disdain for the person they have become.
No yearning to reclaim the beauty that used to be.
No longing for all the love that was once given and received.
No guilt for the damage done to so many lives.
No shame for what has taken over the once full life.
This is different though. More than just a savagely wasting waif that sits before me in such a stupor she can’t even tell me her name, age, address or any meaningful information so I can get her admitted as a real person and not a Jane Doe. This being a psychiatric facility, I’ve seen it before but this one bugs me more.
Suddenly it hits me, not the patient but the reason she haunts me so. I think this may be my daughter. She could be. Her eyes are the same color…that beautiful sky blue. Her hair is limp and dirty; her frame is so lean, not feminine and curvy like I knew of my daughter. But I haven’t seen her in two years so I need to look deeper.
Shaky hands dial the phone to have my husband come to the hospital to help me make sure this wasn’t our child. I wanted to find my daughter but still didn’t want this to be her.
When he arrived and walked in the door, her eyes cleared for a few seconds.
“Daddy”, she said simply.
I sat and cried as the veil covered her face once again.
Rachel, I thought, Rachel. I have missed you but hoped not to find you this way.
“I still love you Rachel”, my husband whispers as we sob together and wait for the doctor.
Please, I beg silently, please bring back my wonderful child that has been lost but is now found. She is still blind, help her to see. She is alive; help me keep her that way.
Stay with me Rachel my child. I love you so.