The young girl was clearly disabled: you could see this in the purposeless, herky-jerky movement of her arms, the thin, wasted body, and the plastic-and-metal braces attached to her sticklike legs that were strapped to the footrests of her wheelchair. She also drooled uncontrollably, and someone was always having to wipe her chin or her face.

She was, however, more aware of what went on around her than what most people gave her credit for. At the age of fourteen, young Jodie Sandusky looked more like a child of six: she was quite tiny, with long, shiny, silken black hair that cascaded down her back like a waterfall, a thin, olive face, almond-shaped eyes of brown that tended to crinkle shut whenever she laughed or cried, and when she smiled, which was often, it nearly split her face in two.

She was aware of other people's reactions towards her. She knew if they were being friendly or condescending towards her, and she knew if they accepted her or not. She was often embarrassed whenever people made fun of her, and she knew that she couldn't help the way she was: she had been born like this; it was something she didn't particularly care for, but it was something that she had to learn to accept.

Jodie was a person who happened to be born with severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. She suffered irreversable brain damage from a lack of oxygen while she was being born, and it left her with a lifetime sentence of severe palsy coupled with severe mental retardation. Jodie was a teenager, but she was more like a child of six--or even younger, intellectually--, and like an infant, physically.

Jodie was born in South Korea. When her parents discovered that she was handicapped, they gave her to an orphanage; they did not seem to want her. At the age of three, she was flown to America, where she was adopted by a family in the state of Tennessee. She had been with this same family ever since; they grew to love her as their very own daughter.

At fourteen, she could not walk: she depended on a wheelchair for mobility, and she had to be clothed, bathed, and diapered like a baby. She was not toilet-trained, and it didn't look like she would ever be. She could talk a little, which opened a whole new world for her, but she mainly used a communication board for "talking" to other people. With this special device, she could make the majority of her thoughts, feelings, and desires known to others.

She also couldn't feed herself. She was prone to choking because she couldn't chew or swallow her food. Instead, she was fed by way of a gastrostomy (GT) tube which had been surgically implanted into her stomach when she was seven: for the past seven years, this was how she wsa fed. A bag of special formula was either held by a person after it had been attached to the tube, or it was hung on an I.V. stand, and the gravity would pull the substance down the tube and into the feeding tube, where it would then enter the young girl's stomach. This was how she got her nourishment, and this process had to be repeated as many as five times a day. Each process took as long as an hour.

Jodie did go to a regular junior high school, where she was mainstreamed into regular classes. She did, however, have "helpers" who helped her with her lessons, and she went to physical, speech, and occupational therapies twice a week. She also went to therapy at the hospital three times a week, and she had to see her pediatrician more than the average kid, to see how she was progressing and growing.

Jodie seemingly had a lot of strikes against her, but she was a happy young lady with a giagantic personality. She loved to laugh and make others laugh along with her, and once she made a friend, that person was hers for life. She loved it when friends would play with her or tickle her, and she loved it when they read to her or held her if she was upset. She loved her family fiercely, and if a member of her family was unhappy, she would cry right along with them. She was in tune to people's feeliings, and when they suffered, she did also.

It wasn't long before people's reactions towards her would melt once they knew of her happy nature and saw that she was more than what appeared on the outside. Jodie was a person who had feelings, and she was smarter than a lot of people realized.

While she couldn't move her body without being out of control or couldn't talk like you or I could, she could, however, love and give love back to others, laugh, cry, "sing", and try to comfort people in her own way if they were unhappy.

She also could retain basic information in her head and let people know just how she was feeling inside with certain gestures, such as blinking her eyes once (for yes) or twice (for no), a slight shrug of her shoulders (indifference), or a grimace on her face (dislike or unhappiness). For added emphasis, she would wave her palsied arms in the air or squeal loudly. She was very good at expressing herself.

The problems she faced were mostly not from herself, but from other people. People were often turned off when she would make her "noises" in church or a crowded restaurant, and they would be repulsed at her jerky movements or her thin, wasted body strapped to a wheelchair. They couldn't seem to understand that underneath all this physical (and mental) disability was a person, a real person who only wanted to be accepted in life and given a chance to succeed.

Sometimes curious adults or kids would get brave. They would tentively approach Jodie and her wheelchair, and they would ask questions. Sometimes the questions were rathre distasteful, but more often than not, people seemed interested in Jodie, and they wanted to try to be her friend. That was when Jodie's happy personality would take off, and people would soon be charmed by this special young lady with the killer smile.

The wheelchair would then be forgotten, and this was what made Jodie happiest. People saw her as a typical person, even though she was clearly NOT typical.

The bridge of tolerance would be crossed yet again.