One place we went to visit was Mount Rushmore. I'll never forget the look of concern in Jeremy's eyes when he saw the presidents in the rock. "Are they really in there? How do they breath?" It took quite a bit to get him to understand that those were just faces carved into the rock. Everything to him was alive. The cars were alive, the statues were alive, everything was real, even things that were fiction. The next day we went to town and saw the film about how they actually created the presidents faces. Then he understood more about how things were done.

We went into Mount Rushmore cave that vacation too. Mom stayed on the top because we were warned that it was rough in spots. At one point we had to walk up stone steps that were damp and they had no side rails to hold on to. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get up them steps and hold onto Jeremy at the same time. One guy in front of me picked him up and climbed up the steps so I could carefully climb up myself. So many times things like that happened. Some guy would just take him in hand and teach him to swim or teach him to fish, or pick him up and carry him. There have been many times when people poked fun of him or wouldn't include him in things, but those times when strangers would make him feel special, those times made me feel special too.

So many times when we come across something we are not familiar with, like mental illness or handicaps, we shun the person becauase not knowing makes us feel uncomfortable. But by doing that we make their already hard lives harder. They are human beings, they have feelings just like everyone else. Just a smile goes a long way. I'm thankful for those who took the time to go out of their way to make Jeremy feel like he was as good as anyone else.