I’ve been out of the game for a hot minute. Three kids ages 4 and under – the youngest of whom appears to be trying to outdo his sister in terms of personality per pound – will do that to a person.

But for a brief moment, I shoved a toe back into a world that has almost forgotten me. And that’s OK. That world isn’t about me, anyway. The Rider, after all, is the Reason.

SPURS Therapeutic Riding Center held its annual Special Olympics competition on Tuesday, choosing to hold it at home again this year, and the atmosphere was just as electric as it was last year. This time, however, I wasn’t there as a volunteer – first time in over a decade – but as a spectator. 

And if there’s one thing that never changes, it’s that the Special Olympics world could be powered solely on the radiance of the smiles of its athletes.

Take, for example, Jacob Bieber of Bowdle.

Jacob is non-verbal and makes minimal eye contact and has a seizure disorder that makes communication difficult.

But if his parents, Joshua and Angela Bieber, don’t make the turn toward SPURS when they come to town, Jacob, in his own way, lets them know they missed it.

“It’s helped him,” Angela said. “You can just tell. He’s more interactive, and he’s excited about getting on the horse. … He’s much more outgoing. It’s made a big difference in Jacob.”

He’s not the only one, either. 

Nineteen years ago, when Caryn Johnson of Aberdeen first started riding, she would never have sat and talked to me for 15 or 20 minutes, asking me questions about my kids, much less agreed to speak to me on the record.

In fact, she likely would never have even looked me in the eye. Now, you probably couldn’t pay her enough money to stop smiling.

“SPURS helped me come out of my shell and be more sociable, I guess you could say,” Caryn said.

So what is it, then, that makes these statements almost universal when you start talking to individuals who have ridden at SPURS or participated in Special Olympics? The horse?

That answer wouldn’t be out of line, really. Jacob has been around horses his entire life; Caryn has ridden a number of horses over 19 years; and Skylar Hirschkorn can name almost every single horse he’s ridden in the past 10 years.

But there’s a bigger, underlying current in their stories. It’s a family out there.

For the first time in over a decade, my shirt didn’t match anyone else’s around me. I wasn’t on the horse handler list, or the sidewalker list or on mount/dismount duty. 

But for the first time ever, I got to show my kids where a piece of my heart will always rest. It’s why Ken Bryan makes a yearly drive from Montana to Aberdeen to photograph the event. And why Lori Simon, a former instructor who now lives two states away, blocks off the Special Olympics weekend to make sure she’s here for it. 

For people like Jacob and Caryn and Skylar and all the other athletes who dare to push themselves and challenge themselves in ways I could never imagine. Those are the smiles that power the world.

And if you take the time to truly look, you can’t help but smile back.