A pair of glasses might not seem like an exceptional Christmas gift, but for a 16-year-old Georgia high school student living with colorblindness, they’ve changed the way he sees the world forever.
Justin Hammons told his mother he just wanted to see the Christmas lights.
The Coosa High School student was born with red-green colorblindness, which kept him from seeing the vibrant holiday hues.
That is, until a package arrived and altered the way the world around him appears.
Hammons’ mother, Carla, said the Floyd County teenager recently learned about the special glasses designed to help people with colorblindness see color. The glasses are sold at $90 to $200 a pair.
In a Facebook post, Carla Hammons said she told her son to wait until Christmas and she would buy him a pair.
“Well,” she said in the post, “he took it all on his own (without me knowing) and set himself up a (GoFundMe) page to where he could get them sooner.”
Carla said she tried to get her son to stop the campaign, but the teen was determined to get the glasses as quickly as possible.
“I have the desire to see what green really looks like,” he said on GoFundMe. “I am deuteranomaly, which is the most common type of red-green colorblindness.”
Place yourself in a neighborhood in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Each door, mailbox and hedge is decked out with wreaths, garland and bright red bows.
Imagine the green wreaths, garland and hedges are leeched of their color, and red bows are devoid of their vibrancy. The wreaths and bows look similar in color, though not quite the same. The once festive scene is now various shades of gray and brown.
That’s how Justin saw the world for 16 years.
Within 24 hours, he raised $220 through the campaign, which allowed him to buy a pair of Pilestone Inc. TP-025 glasses, Channel 2 Action News reported.
After several days of waiting, the glasses arrived in the mail last week, his mother told the news station.
She captured a video of the moment her son first put on the glasses.
In the video, Justin pulls to the front of his house in a bright red truck. The teen begins walking across the front lawn to his home while calling out to his mother and asking if the glasses have come in.
They had. Carla hands Justin the package, and he begins opening the box.
Justin holds the newly unwrapped glasses, but they do not make it to his face before he is overcome with emotion. Justin, now crying, puts on the glasses and turns back to look at his red truck.
“Green. Red,” he says. “I can see it all now.”
“What do you think about your truck?” his mother asks.
“It looks good.”
Justin, while wiping tears from his eyes, begins exploring the colorful world around him.
Carla told Channel 2 the teen hasn’t taken the special glasses off since he’s gotten them. She said Coosa has been supportive and allows him to wear them during class.
She said Justin has been spending a lot of time over the past few days riding around in his red truck, looking at Christmas lights in the area.
“Being able to see colors each and every day is a blessing and we fail to realize what a gift our senses really are!” Carla said.
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