Life on a blue-green planet can be pretty blue when you’re red-green color blind.

He could make out red pretty well. He knew it wasn’t as vivid a depth of color as everybody else saw, but he could perceive and enjoy it. So what if he had trouble telling red from pink. He knew a rose when he saw one, he reflected.

Green was a different story. The bottom light on a traffic light appeared white to him. Currency was all gray and white. Grass was white, the leaves on the trees an amalgam of silver and gray.

Spring and summer were monochromatic, colorless, devoid of the rich tapestry of greens others could see. Oh, he enjoyed the changing of the seasons, but he wished he could enjoy them as much as everyone else did.

Except autumn. Come October, the foliage sprang into life, alive with fire and brilliance. And it was at that time of the year that he felt truly fortunate. Other people appreciated the fall colors, sure. For him, it was the only time he saw the leaves’ colors at all. Suddenly, it was real, it was visible, a cornucopia of color for him to revel in. He took long walks almost every day in the fall, savoring the brief rush of color that would tide him over through the next three seasons.

He mentioned it once to his wife. “I feel like I’m missing something,” he confided. “It’s one of the most abundant colors. If I couldn’t see fuschia or neon orange, I could probably get along just fine, but it would make me so happy to be able to see the colors of a tree in summer.”

His wife thought about it a long time. Such a simple want, really.

So she did some research and brought him a Japanese maple.

When he heard she’d spent so much money on a maple tree, he was disappointed in her judgment—until he went into the back yard and saw the tree.

It was a small tree, ten feet tall at the most, but she’d planted it with room to grow. It had a long, slender gray-brown trunk and plum-colored leaves.

It’s been many years, and they have many Japanese maples now. And sometimes, resting after working hard pruning the trees on a hot summer’s day, he sits back to sip some cool lemonade and reflect on how the love of his life made this blue-green planet not so blue for him anymore.

Copyright 2005 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.
Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.