Color Blind?

I grew up with a father who was completely color blind. He only saw shades of gray ranging from white to black. This type of color blindness is called monochromatic vision. His children at times felt sorry for Dad because we felt he was missing all the beautiful colors of life, but he always said he could not miss what he never had.

This is how my Mom saw color!

This is how my Dad saw color!

 As I was leaving a craft store a few days after my Mom died, I was wondering if Dad`s color blindness ever made her sad. My Mom was a very artistic person. She painted in all mediums, did ceramics, silk flower arrangements and cake decorating to name a few. For the 66 years they were together he never once saw the creations she made in color. The person she loved and valued the most in this world was never able to truly appreciate her talent. She never mentioned it, and maybe as with Dad didn`t miss something she never had. It sure makes me sad for her.

The other thing I thought was interesting about my Dad and his color blindness is that he chose a career as a newspaper journalist. He worked in a career that was for most of his working years all in black and white. Also, my Dad`s favorite thing to do was to work on crossword puzzles. Yep, black and white again. I am not sure he realized that the two things he loved to do in life were naturally black and white.

All of my sisters had a 100% chance of being color blind gene carriers. Both of my sons had a 50% chance of being color blind, and my daughter has a 50% chance of being a carrier.

When my oldest son was around 3 years old we thought he may be color blind. He was having trouble recognizing crayon colors. He was a very smart boy and for a time I thought he was just playing games with me. One day when he was about 4 or 5 he came down from his bedroom with his PJs on, and the top was purple and the bottoms were blue. I asked him why he was wearing two different PJs and he had no idea what I was talking about. He though they were both blue. When he was in first grade he came home with one of his papers marked wrong for not following directions. He was to color parts of a map different colors according to the directions. He was to color a part of the map purple as directed, but instead colored it blue. When I asked him what happened he said the paper on the crayon was torn off and he could not read the color name. Yep, he was color blind.

              I would tease my son that I was going to look for Garanimals

              for college students.The clothes were printed with animals on

              them and you just had to match the animals to make a perfectly

              paired outfit for your child. Great for color blind people.

Twenty eight years old and he has had some challenges being color blind. The problem I remember the most was when he was in chemistry class in High School and College and he could not tell the color differences in some of the reactions in his experiments. Thank goodness he had a lab partner or he could have blown something up. Now he just has to worry about what clothes match when he goes to work. I think he knows now what colors go together, but he may just need help identifying the specific color of some of the items of clothing.  

Now, my grandson (my daughter's son) is 2 years old and we are noticing he is having trouble telling the difference between red and green. I think he is getting a little tired of us asking him all the time what color things are. Lately, when I asked him to tell me what color a red or green item was, he said "Ummmm, I don't know". Time to let nature take it course and wait until he is a bit older to figure it all out.