Bright Eyes

Dedicated to my Grandad, who was called Bright Eyes because they were so blue. My gran used to say that the only colour close to his was Jack on Titanic and would get upset to see the film for this reason. When he was dying, she would say, ''bright eyes, how can they be getting so pale now.'' Eventually his bright eyes closed, forever, and even though I never met him, my dad has those blue eyes and I have, too, but not as blue as grandads were. My youngest daughter was born on what would have been his birthday and strangely, has the brightest blue eyes since the day she was born.

His birthday is 7th Feb.

I wrote this just a ramble of Jack and Rose's life, as she was guided by Jack through the trials and tribulations of life.

For my gran, who also died, eighteen years ago to this day, and I tell those stories to my own children and always will.

When Jack's eyes lit up, Rose melted within them. Blue; so light they were almost transparent but with a God given gift to read her very soul. It was truly terrifying to have the sensation that she was falling from a great height each time his eyes watched her. Sometimes, she was afraid to see how he would view her through those eyes of his own. Those insecurities which had plagued her since the beginning of adolescence threatened to return until it was replaced with the feeling of adoration and appreciation. He intrigued her with every move, until she was breathless and helpless. It had been hard to not give him her heart in its entirety, or perhaps she already had. There was no hesitation though, as he had removed the barriers of her clothes, time and time again and now, with the passion sparked inside of her, she laid with her head upon his chest and in the silence, with his heartbeat as music to her ears. The feel of it beating beneath her cheek; for her. It wasn't just a sign of their vigour, but it was also a reflection of his feelings, too, echoing about within his body and pumping the blood faster around both of their bodies, as though it struggled to keep up with their passions. With their emotions. Rose was flooded by them…

Emotions boiled over, overwhelming each and every sense and the experience of laying with him seemed to awaken her as though she had been dead for a very long time. Almost as though she had never lived. As though she could never sleep. Or eat. The sense of everything which he had instilled inside of her was as though she was constantly under the influence of heavy liquor. Her limbs became boneless. Her body is weightless. She soared endlessly beneath a beautiful sunset, and then, when she turned she would find solstice in the comfort of his eye, sinking into them deeply and then they would close, as he leant in to saviour her mouth and lingered there, with the softness enveloping her in the most intimate way one could ever imagine. It wasn't just when he pressed his lips to her mouth, but to her eyelids where he would soothe out the ache of the tiny purple veins which appeared, or to the duller grey line beneath when she was tired. He would press them to her temple when her head ached. To her cheeks when he kissed away the salty tears which seemed to return at different times. Tears of happiness, of sadness, of heartache, and the endless memories of suffering in such a way. A longing to be born again in a world where the Titanic never sinks. Where there would be no more pain, but then, in such a tragedy, she and Jack had emerged as lovers. Two people completely infatuated by the other…

Jack's arms would hold her, to keep her warm and offer comfort, but they gave her strength when she was in her weakened state. His body wasn't big, or broad, but it was sturdy enough that when he pulled her into him, the feel of his chest against hers and the way his arms came across her shoulders were enough to chase away all fears. As the sun approached, Rose would find herself completely entangled within his limbs, and she would be afraid to move, never wanting to wake him from the peaceful dreams which caused his lips to turn up at the ends as he slept, just a tiny bit. She would study him, then, in the early mornings rising sunlight as it poured in through the windows, and greeted them to fetch a new day. His eyelashes were long, dark and sparsely spread across his upper cheek. His nose flared at times as he took in deeper breaths. His cheekbones were defined. His skin beautifully tanned even in the coldest winter. She would flush as she explored further down his body, her fingers tickling across his chest, the track down to his stomach and then the area below the sheets. These were stolen stares which she would cherish for the rest of her days, and recall fondly as she would lay warm in her bed as an old woman. He made her feel as though she had been under the influence of the strongest medication for the entire month of April. She had screamed in anguish, screamed in delight and he had shown her the colours of the world which before then, she had even failed to see. He had stolen her heart, when he had taken her hand to dance. Where they had danced to the rhythm of a band. To the rhythm of their own heartbeats. Roughened fingertips had been upon her delicate ones. Like a contrast of silk and stone. Those hands gripped her hips, as she went and together, they slipped into a state of rare bliss. A rarity that she had never felt as the sides of her stomach felt hard and sore from laughter. A long dance had ensued before those blue eyes had hypnotised her entirely and they were completely lost in the rhythm. Lost in the dazed way in which he watched her, examining every facet of her as though she was the rarest diamond. The same way which he watched her when she stripped away the layers of linen just as he had that same day when he had sketched her naked body in the most luxurious sitting room aboard a maiden voyage of a ship. Those bright eyes never diminished. Not even through time. They seemed to burn brighter, just like the fire of desire which was spread in their bellies over the longest passage of time. They shared the same fears, and each time, there would be a hand waiting to hold hers through them all. It had felt so good, in those early days, that it was almost a sin. Trying to stop the emotions, trying to repair barriers which had been torn down and so, all they could do was give in. Defy her damned Societal rules, her family and everything which she had ever known just because her heart had been claimed by the blue eyes of a boy who she knew so very little and yet, more than any other person ever had.

Jack had brought life to her, sparked passion inside of her. Brought the fantasies to reality. Caused a man to control her emotions beyond his own will, and her own. This was limitless, intense and crazy. She would smile at him, like a child but it was his smile, which would capture her on the faces of their own children. Those lips which would sweetly twitch, in the most beautiful way. The lips quivered with unhappiness, watching their father go off to fight in a war which felt truly terrifying. The bright eyes dimmed with fear as he stood on the train platform, shining with unshed tears as a twenty five year old man was about to go off to a strange country, to fight in a violent war which had been raging for too long already. A man who was to go and kill. A man who was brave enough to hold onto the woman who he loved, and his two young daughters for what could possibly be the last time and then he went, to leave it all behind.

But, Rose hadn't given in, she had put down roots in a dream land and their girls had flourished, their eyes gleaming with pride and happiness as they read letters from the man who became their hero. Their fighter. The man who, upon return, had been a changed and wiser man, with haunted eyes as dark as the enemy had been. In the depths, she struggled to see the fire which had once burned there so beautifully bright but somehow, over the passage of time, they had become brighter again. Warmer.

They had managed to dance again, and it had become a dangerous game. A game in which she had come alive once more and he had laughed with her, melting every piece of ice, removing every piece of ivy which covered him and had done since the war. There had been an element of freedom once more as the newest decade followed and with it brought many a change. It brought more children bearing those bright eyes and wonderful smiles. The passage of time seemed to grow shorter, and it was only as they watched their five children and how they changed so quickly from a nursing, sleepless baby where the nights seemed to never end through a cloud of tiredness, to an adult barely leaving adolescence and walking down the aisle about to join another at the altar in matrimony.

The children were happy. They grew in the blink of one's eye and soon, Rose would sit, sipping sherry across a table to see only Jack's bright eyes once more. The empty spaces would sting at times, but others, it was nice to have the stacks of paper, the pots of paint and the confusion of what would be created that day. Homemade vases lined their sills and shelves. Each time the grandchildren visited, another would either be smashed or made. Is that what love was? Cherishing those moments and times with those who they held most dear.

Heavy, homemade wooden photo frames contained moments captured throughout their lives which were the most monumental, from those early days in Santa Monica pier, to the births of the children and the grandchildren, to the trips abroad they had taken frequently since Jack had returned from the war. The people in the pictures varied; as a walk through time changed the lines within their faces. Colour appeared in them. They grew less grainy. More defined but those bright eyes remained the same. They still burned bright with the same flames of love, of desire and of happiness as they had since a night so long ago at the stern of a ship in which Rose had first looked into them and felt how her universe was filled for the first time in her life.

She was complete.

After Jack's eightieth birthday, those eyes, so weathered with fine lines of time, but still as handsome as ever, had started to dwindle. Pain shadowed them. They became glassy and glazed, and then, the decline started…

It was never going to be easy to imagine seeing them ever be as blue as they were, but it was as though life was slowly draining out of them. They would move about, as though he was following the river of death downstream. There was a fog on the horizon, and he would blink heavily as though he was living in some kind of a dream. The tides of the Pacific would never again be seen within them, nor would the glimmer of hope or the burning of desire. They would soon close and fail.

The bright eyes would grow dimmer.

As the shadows moved across them, Jack would reach out for his wife in the night, and talk of them wandering over the hills as there was a high wind in the trees. He saw them there, sometimes with the children, sometimes it was just them.

Finally, he saw them at the front of a ship, soaring across the North Atlantic ocean and Rose, although growing older and frail, was suddenly as excited as a girl again, and then, within the depths, she saw the sunlight and the moonlight. She saw him, again, as a young man before the cruelty of time had taken over to wither him down to hunched figure, laying in bed, clasping onto the last moments of this side of living. He had lived though. He had made life count. By God he had. The legacy of his children, of those memories and the sounds of his laughter which would forever be heard through the passing down of his stories to the endless line of children and grandchildren which would follow.

''It all started, with a glance,'' Jack told her, that last time he had managed to speak, ''I saw you up there like an angel and I loved you then, and I knew that I would love you past my dying day.''

''And, I knew it as soon as I saw those eyes of yours, watching me so rudely, my darling.'' Trying to laugh, it came out more as a gasp of fear.

''There's nothing to be afraid of, Rose. I am not going anywhere. Just following destiny. You will have to follow it, too, but not yet. Go to Africa. Go…live, my darling.''

''I will live, and love you, for the rest of time, how ever long that may be.''

''End-endlessly.''

The light which burned so brightly, paled and then burned out completely.

They closed.

Forever.

''Those bright eyes will always exist. In my memory. They will never burn out for me. I see Jack in the eyes of my children, and their children. I see them watching and guiding me until I shall fall into them again. I know for now, it's foggy and unclear but soon, that will clear and we will be able to live, happily again, for some time after. It will only be a faded sun for a short time, and then the sun shall come out again. He will make sure of it.'' Rose had said on the cold, February morning when her husband had been laid to rest.

Make it count. Rose had written upon his gravestone. Because they had done. And she would continue to do so.

Her heart would go on. It had to.