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Thursday, August 17, 2006

CAN

This isn't exactly a 'new post', since I didn't write it, but I just had to share this story I came across today. As I sit here after reading it, I have a big smile on my face and tears welling in my eyes.

Strongest Dad in the World

[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

"I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay
for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

''He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!''

And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says.

Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. `The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''



Wow. Just, wow.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, like you said ... 'wow!', not to mention 'WHOA'!!

I've been alive on this planet for more than six decades now, and I am not aware of anything accomplished by a human being ... at least not since Jesus of Nazareth suffered, died and refused to stay dead ... that demonstrates the kind of love our Heavenly Father has for each one of us as clearly as that father's demonstration of love for his son.

In the face of the awesome presence of the Living God, we are as broken and helpless as that young man is in the arms of the father who loves him. And, like that father, our Father devotes all that he is to making sure we can experience the joy and wonders of life, anyway. Interesting, isn't it, how one short video can make clear a message that a thousand sermons can leave altogether unconveyed?

watersoul said...

awesome story....how powerful and important it is for that father to want to give his son the feeling of not being disabled, even for a minute...When I think about being a parent someday, I imagine that feeling of wanting to give your child the best possible life.

Flake said...

Truely amazing! Great story!

Now, how come everyone at the gate is looking at me? Can a grown man not be on his laptop and have his eyes well up?

bill voigt said...

"...When I think about being a parent someday, I imagine that feeling of wanting to give your child the best possible life."

Me too, Paula...me too...that's one of the things I love most about you.

:)

@Kyle -- same here! I'm here at the office hoping real hard no one walks up on me with my wet, red eyes! Guess I should have posted a 'warning'. ;)

Jim V said...

I don't have any words for this. Tell everyone you know to see this.

Mrs. Goodneedle said...

Wow! You were right about posting the warning... I cried, too; but that's OK. I knew about this man and his son, saw a piece about them on the news a while back. This should be required viewing, particularly when you hear someone say "there are no heroes anymore"... oh yes there are! There are heroes indeed. I will never hear this "Mercy Me" piece of music again without thinking of Dick Hoyt and his son.

Jim V said...

We seek further wisdom my bro from the same mo. New post! New post! New post!