The Wise Man on the Right

I’ve been going through old black & white photographs and asking an AI model to colourise them for me, and it’s doing a pretty decent job of this. This photo jogged a few memories and prompted a realisation. Read on to find out more.

I don’t remember much about the day that photograph was taken, just the soft weight of the costume, the scratch of the fabric at my neck, and the sense that something important was happening even if I didn’t quite understand what. I must have been six or seven. We crossed the road from Birstall County Primary school to the chapel in our costumes, a little procession of shepherds, angels, and wise men wobbling along the pavement like mismatched ducklings.

In the picture, I’m the one on the far right: glasses too big, robes hanging awkwardly, trying to look solemn and grown-up. I can see now that I was nervous, though I wouldn’t have had the words for it then. Back then, I just felt “different,” without knowing why.

If I could speak to that kid now, that tiny wise man with the oversized glasses, I’d tell him the truth no one around him knew how to give him. I’d tell him he’s autistic, and that this is why the world feels louder, sharper, and more complicated for him than it seems to be for the other children. I’d tell him he isn’t broken or strange; he’s simply wired in a way that will one day make sense.

I’d warn him, too, because honesty matters. The bullying will come, and it will hurt, and it will get worse in high school before it gets better. But I’d also tell him that he survives it. Not by becoming someone else but by slowly, stubbornly, becoming himself.

And maybe that’s why colourising this photo feels so powerful. It’s like offering that child a kindness he never received at the time: a moment of being seen clearly, gently, and with understanding.

Sometimes the smallest memories are the ones that finally teach us who we’ve been all along.

#AI #Autism #autistic #blackAndWhite #Childhood #colourised #disability #disabled #emotion #family #feeling #glasses #life #love #memoir #Nativity #oldPhoto #spectacles #wiseMan