The Story of Jason
It wouldn’t be as meaningful of a start if I didn’t begin with a story of my own son: Jason.
Jason was born deaf, but we didn’t know he was deaf at first. His hearing tests were telling us that he was hard of hearing in the moderate range.
When he was almost 3 years old he was able to get a more in depth test while under anesthesia to have ear tubes placed in both of his ears. That procedure marked the day when we found out his hearing loss diagnosis was closer to the severe to profound and not moderate as we initially believed.
After much researching and debate, he was implanted with Cochlear Implants at age 3 1/2. Many new sounds were introduced to him, but his brain had to make sense of them. He was working hard at figuring out the overwhelming amount of new audio experiences he was having.
One day, I decided to take him, his brother, step-sister and some friends for a walk to the park near our house. On the way there, the kids played around as we walked on the trail under the Bart train track. They were all filled with energy and in a great happy mood. I told them all to sit on a cement platform so I could capture the moment with my DSLR camera (I was doing a lot of photography back then). Right before I captured the shot, I told them all to do a silly face, which they all promptly did.
Except for Jason.
You see, the Bart train happened to pass above us right at the time I was about to pull the trigger. The sound of the train passing was a common thing in our small town. It was very familiar to all of us, but for Jason, it was something entirely new. While all the other kids ignored the loud sound of the train passing, Jason couldn’t help but to look up and that’s the way the picture was captured.
This moment meant a lot to me. It represented days and days, weeks and weeks, years and years of all the work we did to make sure he had access to sounds. I meant that he was learning to understand and differentiate them, that he was able to communicate both via sign language and orally. It represented the beauty of sounds we often find mundane. And in a much deeper layer, it symbolized the beauty of human experience thorough all of our our senses.
I knew one day I would want to paint that moment. So here it is! Let me know what you think of it in the comments bellow.
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