Michael Owen pays moving tribute to clinically blind son on his 18th birthday
Michael Owen paid tribute to his son James Owen for his birthday this week, sharing that he's "incredibly proud".
The former professional footballer, 44, took to Instagram on Tuesday to mark the special occasion. He shared a photo of himself and his son James, now 18, from a holiday in France, with the Arc de Triomphe in Paris visible behind the pair. Alongside the photo, Michael wrote in the accompanying caption: "Welcome to adulthood son." He added about the second eldest of his four children in the recent post: "I'm incredibly proud of the man you've become."
Michael Owen (right) paid tribute to his son James Owen (left) in a recent post (Instagram / @themichaelowen)
The former footballer expressed his pride for James' 18th birthday earlier this week (@themichaelowen/Instagram)The post so far has more than 20,000 likes on the platform. And it prompted well-wishes from a number of Michael's followers, including from his former Liverpool F.C. teammate Jamie Redknapp, who commented: "Happy birthday James."
The special occasion comes just weeks after Michael and James appeared together on Good Morning Britain last month. They spoke about James having eye condition Stargardt disease, with it said that he's now "clinically blind".
According to the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), it's an "inherited eye condition" that affects part of the retina. Symptoms are said to include "unclear or blurry" vision, and things may appear "distorted or wavy" at times.
Michael Owen shares sweet message to celebrate lookalike son's birthday
The special occasion comes just weeks after the pair appeared on Good Morning Britain together (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)James shared during the interview on the ITV show: "Since I was born this way, I don't know what to compare it to. So I know I've got like a few blindspots and apparently some places are blurry, but I don't know what any different is."
Michael said: "You want to take all the pain away from him. You feel sorry for him every time he goes to hospital and gets new drops that make his eyes sting and he's crying all day [...] But James was born that way. James doesn't know any different. I think it was quite hard for us of course when we found out that this was an incurable disease at the moment.
"We live in an age with stem cells [and] we go to bed every night praying something's gonna be there to cure him, but at the moment, it's a condition that regresses over time. So that's obviously horrible, but I've never sang it off the rooftops. We get on in life. James is 18 in a couple of weeks.
"We have a fantastic life together. it brings us closer. I have to drive him everywhere [and] I'm absolutely delighted about that. We take the positives out of it. Of course you bring it to light in the public domain and everyone's like 'Oh my word' but it's water off a duck's back for us. It's just news to the world but as I say we've been living with it a long time."
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