I always liked the color blue. Blue always made me feel warm and happy, the way its calm cool look made me feel as if I were lost in a sea of different shades of blue. Any color was good, but there was one specific kind of blue that I loved. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find the right color. Paint samples were a help, and some came really close to matching it, but there was always a flaw. It is too bright, too dull, too tinted, it has too much gray mixed in, is what I would say, but I knew what was missing from every one of the color samples.
It was the sparkle of Jenny’s eyes. The beautiful cool blue that brought reassurance that we would make it through the tough times. The nights of piled homework staked to the ceiling, I knew I would make it because those beautiful blue eyes would tell me so. Jenny had a way of speaking with her eyes. All she needed to do was look at you and you knew exactly what she was trying to say.  
Jenny was no mother figure to me but merely a good friend to be there in times of need. She was older, but that didn’t keep us from being friends. Even though we didn’t live in the same town, we went to the same school, so that helped.
Jenny’s home life wasn’t the best. Her dad left them when she was five. Growing without her father didn’t hinder her from being the best person in the world. Her mom wasn’t the best either. She frequently wound up in jail and cared more about her tattoos than her three kids, but Jenny still loved her.
Jenny was the middle kid of her two brothers. Her older brother didn’t care what his mom did or what was happening to his downfalling grades. He didn’t care, and he didn’t want to care. All that mattered to him was his video games and go drive around with his “friends”.
Her younger brother was a brat, and Jenny had to take care of him the best she could because her mom was barely around and her brother wouldn’t discipline him. Jenny became the woman of their house. Later, their grandma moved in with them and took care of the cooking and the cleaning. Their grandma became their legal guardian, and their mom put up no fight.
If you could have seen through Jenny’s eyes, you would have been heart broken. Somehow, though, she was always happy. She never came to school sad or depressed, but happy. The blue eyes were something I looked forward to seeing every day. They were overflowing with joy and happiness from a greater source than I have ever known.
The saddest day of my life was the day she moved to go live with her grandma. I felt as though someone had stolen all the happiness from my life. I was really depressed for awhile and my grades dropped. I had lost my only friend.
Then one day it hit me. I knew where Jenny got her joy. I saw a girl sitting by herself in the lunchroom, eating all alone. I went and sat down next to her and introduced myself. Her name was Lora. She told me that she had just moved there from Colorado. That day we became the best of friends. She did not have Jenny’s blue eyes (they were brown), but I didn’t need them any more because I had discovered the joy of Jenny’s blue eyes.