This is the hardest time of the year for me to accept that my little guy is color blind.

Thanks to some sharp-eyed observations from one of his teachers, I suspected pretty soon after he came home from Sakhalin Island in October 2005 that he wasn't seeing colors the way the rest of us did. He was overtly fond of yellow--had to have yellow sneakers, yellow boots, a yellow Polartec--but lots of little kids love yellow. Subsequent testing by the two most fabulous pediatric ophthalmologists on the planet has confirmed that he is red-green color blind, the form of color blindness that the experts call deuteranopia.

It's not a big deal for daily living, though it may limit his ability to be a commercial airline pilot or a tomato picker. When there is a rainbow to be colored at school, his tablemates help him line up the crayons in the right order.

But fall is, to my thinking the most beautiful season in the most beautiful corner of the world--the northeastern United States. People come here by the busload to see hillsides change from rippling shares of green to an explosion of yellow, orange and red.

At least that's how it looks to me, and I could stare at these fall colors for hours. But if you are red-green color blind, red becomes a dark olive green, and the rainbow is more yellow than anything else. Not very interesting, or vibrant. (If you want to see what the rainbow looks like to someone with deuteranopia, check out this image from Wikipedia.)

A strong storm on Sunday night brought down many of the remaining leaves around our house. And as we walked to school, we came upon a red maple that had dropped its leaves in a thick red carpet. It was, to my eyes, simply stunning. But before I could even say, "Oh look", my little guy stopped and stared. "Mom, this is beautiful."

What did the neighbor's lawn look like to him? I can only imagine. But if he thinks it was beautiful, that's good enough for me.

Image credit: Kevin Rosseel, Morguefile.com