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Rachael Clarke is a writer and medical copy editor living in the Philadelphia suburbs with her two favorite people, her husband, Micah and daughter Tegan.
He had wanted to make her smile, and he'd succeeded. There's no being sorry for that.
But I don't think that's why you said you were sorry.
I think you said it because you've had to say it so many times.
To those who are impatient or unkind, who aren't understanding, who treat that man (who I imagine is your son) like he is less because he has Down syndrome. And for that I am the sorry one.
In my food shopping experience alone I can tell you: he is more than the man who ignores my waving child, he is more than the woman who stares at her like she's an untouchable germ factory.
He is more than the people who give her dirty looks when she's excited or cranky, when she tries to climb out of the cart, when she knocks over candy and magazines in the checkout aisle.
He is someone who accepted my daughter, who showed her the goodness, the unfiltered kindness that can exist in others.
And for that, dear mother (wherever you are), please accept my thanks.
She loves to bake and create art when she can, and is most fond of making her daughter laugh. She has a photographic memory, which she's working on writing down. Thanks for reading her stories.
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