By Rachel Greenley
Green is the rarest of eye colors—only two percent of the world’s population. My children had a fifty-percent chance to be born with green eyes. When the twins were born with blue, I was blue. I lie in one hospital bed. My green-eyed husband, Jim, lie in another. We were thirteen miles apart. He was undergoing total body irradiation as I gave birth, his pale hospital gown tied in the back just like mine, his own plastic hospital bracelet around his wrist just like mine.
Melanin is pigment. It makes hair, skin, eyes light or dark. Absence of melanin is a palette devoid of color—a blank slate, an empty canvas, a hollow grief. Have you seen the eyes of someone grieving? They carry a particular look—as if pain’s sharp layers could live in an iris.
Stroma is a layer of tissue in the iris. The amount of melanin or pigment in one’s stroma creates eye color. Albino eyes lack pigment. Blue eyes have a touch. More melanin leads to green. A healthy dose delivers brown. From faint to blue to green to brown. Inherited from parents’ genes. Continue Reading…