“Mom, if it were normal, would people love me?” …For years they mocked my son and called him “the old man,” but one day, the words he had written in his old notebook made the whole room stand up

They wanted to turn Daniel’s notebook into a book.

I thought I’d be afraid.

But he looked at me with his tired little eyes and said,

“Mom, if my story helps even if it’s just one child to feel less alone, then let them read it.”

The book was published a year later.

His title was:

I’m not my face

On the day of the book’s presentation, the room was full.

Even some of the children who for years had mocked Daniel were sitting in the front rows.

Daniel slowly took the stage.

He was still small and thin, with the same wrinkles on his face.

But when he started talking, the whole room was silent.

“When I was little, I thought people didn’t love me because I was different. Then I understood that the problem was not my face. The problem was that some hearts had not yet learned to see beyond appearances.”

He stopped for a moment.

Then he looked at me.

I was already crying.

“My mom would tell me every day, ‘You’re not a disease. You are a miracle.’ For a long time I didn’t believe him. But today… when I see so many people here, I want to believe that maybe I was right.”