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Beth Kobliner Shaw's Note

"Don't stare. Don't point. And definitely don't say anything."

These are the rules we tell our kids to follow when they meet someone who is different—whether that person is in a wheelchair, extremely tall, or has brilliant orange hair.

For some reason, Jacob's eye patch prompts the opposite behavior. I like to think that it's because of Jacob's open, welcoming nature—one he was blessed with from birth—which acts as a kind of "green light" for questions about his patch. His ability to answer questions is empowering for Jacob.

Jacob wears a patch because he was born with two common eye conditions: amblyopia, which is when one eye (in his case, the right) is stronger than the other, and strabismus, more commonly known as being cross-eyed. When he was just five days old, the ophthalmologist told us to put an adhesive patch on Jacob's right eye for eight hours a day, forcing Jacob to rely on his weaker left eye. As he grew older, he had to wear the patch from three to as many as ten hours a day. Today, his eyes are beautifully aligned, with 20/20 vision in each.

Of course there are those times when Jacob, like any child, doesn't want to be bothered with questions. It can be irritating to offer up the same explanation day after day. But if someone really needs to know—more than Jacob needs not to talk about it—Jacob is always willing to tell his story one more time.

Beth Kobliner Shaw