Last summer, besides working a regular job, I did something special for someone who was about to do something very special for me. But that’s not what I was thinking when the summer started. Then I felt I was doing a favor for someone less privileged than I you see. Last summer I gave Adam swimming lessons. Adam is a great kid. At seventeen he is just entering high school, because he is mentally retarded. This project started as a favor to one of my mom’s friends, Adam’s mother, but I also did it because I pitied Adam, even though I had never met him.

I could not have been more wrong than to pity Adam. We met throughout the summer, two or three times a week. Sometimes we swam, somtimes we did other things. And suddenly I realized I was taking lessons from Adam. One of them was that you should never pity someone for what he/she is. Adam is not and never was cheated by life; in fact, he seems to know what he wants in life and what’s important about it, which is more than I can say for myself.

Now when I hear people talk about how "sad" it is that someone is retarded, or worse yet, how “generous” it is that they are “allowed to mainstream” with the rest of us, I hope to try to make them realize what Adam taught me: Down deep, all people are the same and we’re all looking for the same thing—a little bit of DIGNITY, a little bit of RESPECT, and a little bit of FRIENDSHIP.