When my mother was dying last year, I set out to try to make her experience one that involved thinking about pleasant things in her life. She had learned some cognitive exercises from a psychologist friend, who had used them on her own mother, who had been dying a decade earlier.

As my friend did, I had my mother write in a “memory book.” It was a simple journal that he had bought to record some of the good memories of his life. The goal of the book was to reaffirm the goodness in her life, rekindle happy memories, and reinforce God’s love.

In it, she wrote details such as the names of the nuns that she was taught when she was little in a convent school in Italy, names of her friends, pets, favorite foods, etc. I also asked him to write down wishes for each of his children and his extended family. In his memories, inevitably, the theme of God would come up. Other members of the family were shy about bringing up the subject of her impending death, but she knew very well that she was dying and that she would soon leave her physical body, and I think that writing, thinking, and talking brought her up. they seemed spiritually therapeutic.

During one of these conversations, as he lay in his hospice bed, we were talking about heaven. Instinctively and nonchalantly I asked him to remember to let us know what color God’s eyes were when he reached heaven. He was trying to make her smile and break up the otherwise grim conversation. I told her that I suspected that God’s eyes were blue, like in the image of Christ that she was using as a bookmark in the scrapbook in front of her. I asked him to promise to let us know as soon as he met God face to face. She nodded with the head she used to provide me, used to about 50 years of asking her seemingly peculiar questions.

Months later, after his death, I kept thinking about that exchange. While we all know that God does not have a human form, it often helps us to think in those terms. Of course, God had a pair of human eyes, as He took the form of a human being in Christ. These were the eyes that brought the vision and clarity of truth to an often troubled and blind world. I don’t think it’s a mere coincidence that many of the gospels mention the eyes, the windows to the soul. Human eyes are blessed and healed in various New Testament passages.

I had almost forgotten about the conversation with my mother … until one clear autumn afternoon, shortly after her death. I was walking under a bright blue sky in a nearby park, and there were many people enjoying the sun and the rustle of leaves swirling in the wind. There were young and old, and people of different origins. There were lovers, babies, friends, parents and children … all reveling in the fresh air. As I looked around at the rainbow of people having fun in the park, the answer to my question was painfully obvious.

To my surprise, God’s eyes were really blue! His eyes are also … Brown … and Green … and Gray. These colors were all around me that afternoon. The eye of God reflects all the bright colors that are the beautiful hues and spectrum of our human family. Now I’m sure my mother knows.

Because if beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, our God has made us a truly wonderful vision. When each of our opportunities is to meet God face to face and look into his loving eyes, I am sure that we will see that this is very true, and we will find that God is one who reflects each one of us.