HADIN COOPER: Even though we look different
on the outside, we’re still twins on the inside.
COMM: Hadin and Gabriel Cooper are identical
twins who look very different. Gabriel was born with Pierre Robin Syndrome. A condition,
which causes a smaller than normal lower jaw.
GABRIEL COOPER: So instead of saying I’m
different from Hadin, I say that I’m unique from Hadin because of this. When I was twelve,
it truly hit me that this is how I am different. To this day, honestly, I don’t really like
taking photos.
COMM: But now age nineteen, Gabriel is preparing
for surgery on his jaw, which will not only make talking and eating easier but could make
him look more like his brother.
GABRIEL COOPER: I have been given the opportunity
to go to New York and have a procedure done that will change the perspective of how people
view me and my difference.
RAMONA COOPER: I don’t want Gabriel to feel
like this surgery is to make him look like Hadin. As if how he looks is wrong and Gabriel’s
the right side. Yes, you’re identicals, that is genetically true, that is chromosomally
true. I think Gabriel will look like Gabriel but different. I, I don’t know how to explain
it. I just know that there is no part of me that feels that one should look like the other.
HADIN COOPER: Honestly, I don’t know if
I want my brother to look like me because I don’t know if that’s what he wants to
look like. I’m 90% sure Gabriel is gonna be cool with whatever is the end product.
COMM: Gabriel will travel from Alabama to
New York in May for his operation. And it was one of his high school teachers who pointed
him in the direction of The Little Baby Face Foundation, a charitable organisation that
helps give young people from around the world access to facial reconstructive surgery.
JENNI CURRIE: He was just always that student
who I knew I could count on no matter what I asked him. He was always the one who would
stand up and help. It makes me a little apprehensive only because of his apprehension. I’m thrilled
for the possibilities, for the prospects of what this could do. Gabe has got so much intelligence
and so much to offer. Unfortunately, so many people don’t see beyond the exterior, and
that’s not fair to him because there is so much behind the exterior many people just
won’t even bother to get to know.
HAIDEN COOPER: I realised people treated Gabriel
differently when we were in school. All the kids couldn’t figure out because they didn’t
notice. So they thought that you know it was cool to provoke him.
GABRIEL COOPER: That’s what people did,
talk about my facial difference. Like “Oh, he can’t do it ‘cause of that”, or “You
can’t do this ‘cause of that”. But my most prideful moments are when I prove them
wrong. Now that I have made myself a respectable young man, they treat me as such. I do have
those who just see me, make fun of me on the spot and to them I pay no attention really.
COMM: And Gabriel has big plans for the future.
GABRIEL COOPER: I do see myself as the next
Richard Branson. You know, he’s a very top dog in a lot of fields that nobody really
knows and that’s what I want to be. I want to be so known, I’m not known. I’m the
guy in the back who everybody’s like, “Where did this come from?” Oh I did that. “Who
thought of this way?” I did. But I’m not right there to say that because I’m too
busy thinking of a new idea to give out. So definitely somebody who can do that in the
field of gaming.
COMM: Now, the family can only wait for Gabriel’s
surgery date to arrive.
RAMONA COOPER: Some people need things not
because they want to fit in, it’s because they’re tired of standing out for the wrong
reason. If that makes any sense.
GABRIEL COOPER: If I was born without the
difference, I don’t think I would appreciate the things I appreciate now.