I remember first noticing my difference from others when my family was presented with an oil painting of me. It was a gift from my grandmother’s friend who was a painter just like her. It was framed beautifully and was placed on the wall of the living room. At 4 yrs old I noticed the girl who looked like me didn’t have my eyes though. I asked my parents and they just let me know that the painter made my eyes look normal. The painting became the other me the one I was supposed to look like but I didn’t. My mother than became obsessed with curing my left eye of Heterochromia. She was convinced that if she could just find the right diet for me as a child; it would go away. She would routinely examine my eye and was happy when she thought it was fading in color. It never did it just stayed the same but she felt the need to fix me and see results. In school other kids were scared of me they didn’t want to look in my eyes or sometimes sit by me. I always wished there was another person like me; but I never did meet anyone like me. Not until the internet and Facebook came into being. Then it became a sense of relief that there were others. I even found lists of celebrities and historical figures that had it. I was not alone. I often look at the pictures and stories of others like me and cry. They seem like a family of people who don’t know each other but are connected. Another race of mankind who have had to feel what it is like to not be apart of mankind. But, feel empathy for themselves and for the people who will never accept them as normal. I even dreamed that we were called the Jaguar people and were sent here to save mankind from themselves. That we can see and feel things that they have long forgotten. So here’s to hoping that one day when you look at our eyes we can teach you how to see how we see. That the whole universe is a diverse garden and all are welcome.
I am lucky that my eyes never resulted in me been bullied or anything like that
Heterochromia Photography Project - Book 