Thursday, August 17, 2006

This gets me every time

Ok....this story makes me sob uncontrollably everytime I see it. It's definitely one of the most moving things I've ever seen. Thought I'd share it with you too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

The Story (from SI, the week before Father's Day 2006)

Strongest Dad in the World[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons.

Eight times he's not onlypushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaledhim 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cordduring birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable tocontrol his limbs.`
`He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rickwas nine months old. Put him in an institution.''
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the wayRick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department atTufts University and asked if there was anything tohelp 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 hishead, Rick was finally able to communicate. Firstwords? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high schoolclassmate 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.
Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out ofmore than 20,000 starters. ``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.'' 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 findways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including Father's Day this weekend.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he cannever buy.``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw this story on Opray. And yes it makes me cry, too! Such an inspirational story!

Anonymous said...

Hi!

This video totally blew me away. I looked around a bit and found another one (documentary, I like this even omre than the video) on YouTube and also their homepage and a few articles ... truely inspiring.


Markus

Anonymous said...

This is sort of a trackback/ping.
(you're mentioned on Team Hoyt :-))

Markus

Anonymous said...

Tammy,

no need for bookmarking unless you're really interested in the stuff I put there :-).

The original link to the video was gone, but a reader of my blog found a new one (in fact now there are several copies now) so I thought I'd mention it.

Maybe it'll help you with the photographic challenge (I hope it went well :-))


Markus

Anonymous said...

hi! how can I find the video, it was removed.

Anonymous said...

Here's a new link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79hUngrVwGM