This story is worth the read and the video only adds to the story.
Today my friend shared this with me and several others in the office. It certainly left an impression — everyone cried.
So now I will share it and I would love to know how this impacts all of YOU –
Please share your thoughts and feelings!
—————————————–
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 and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike.
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 during a race. Doctors found that one of his
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.”
Watch the video:
19 comments
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August 10, 2006 at 4:27 pm
stacijoy
I’ll repeat my question here… what makes this so emotional? Why does everyone cry? Does this father represent someone “bigger” for all of us?
August 10, 2006 at 4:41 pm
anorton
I’m with you - must see
it’s amazing
it’s the cry of every human heart
who will help you do what you can’t do for yourself?
How can I help another cross the line?
andrew
August 10, 2006 at 5:10 pm
drlori
This story and video slay me EVERY STINKING TIME!!! I get weepy even thinking about it!
Let’s do coffee before school starts for me!!
August 10, 2006 at 9:34 pm
cindy
Wow, that was amazing. Thanks for sharing it. I saw the one who makes my dreams come true when I watched it. He carries me and pushes me on. I picture myself as that son who is unable to make his dreams happen and sometimes even unable to dream at all. But there is one who knows what he wants for me and will make it happen no matter what the cost. Awesome!
August 10, 2006 at 11:59 pm
nozza
Amazing - here’s me, thinking ‘Typcial girls, crying over anything. Ok, I’ll watch this and see what it is all about.’ Wow! I am sitting here in tears now as well. What a great dad and what an accepting son.
Just so thankful to God that he carries me simply to see a smile on my face…
August 11, 2006 at 5:55 am
Tina
Tim - I smiled big and chuckled when I read your comment! I too was thinking … man, are all of us girls just hormonal or something?! My friend Staci (stacijoy - see her comment above) and I often talk about how we guard our tears and don’t want to cry. So when I noticed that this particular story caused each and every person to shed a tear I asked her to watch it and tell me if she cried too … and she did!
What is up here? I analyze everything and so when I saw the response people were having to this story it made me wonder what deep inside of us is getting tugged on? Is it a different emotion for each of us? Or is there a common thread running through humanity that would cause all of us to respond in a similar manner?
OK I don’t want to come off as purely clinical! I was deeply moved by this. I love the way the father fights for his son. He is a warrior. I am wowed at the extraordinary (fitness) strength this father is able to muster up. I have run a marathon and so I know firsthand the physical and emotional strain it takes on a person. I ran it in 5 hours and 33 minutes — and I am younger and wasn’t running with a wheelchair! I wonder … if we all were this devoted and loved people with this kind of intensity how much more power and strength would we have? Could we move mountains for real?
What are we not tapping into? LOVE - love is an unstoppable force …
Anyone have further thoughts on this?
August 11, 2006 at 6:59 am
nozza
I have now cried twice at it - once on my own, once with my wife. What have you done to me!!!
You have got me thinking about what actually made me cry. I don’t cry at the fact that the son is disabled. It is sad, but that is not why I cry.
I think it is the dad. It is the look on his face, the very fact that he seemingly does this with not even a thought. I mean, if he had run one marathon and stopped there, that surely would have been more than enough. But no, he just keeps on going.
It is the fact that he does this, not for accolades or distinction, but simply to make his son smile. He is not personally gaining from it, in fact he is having to live a hard life in order to compete at such a high level.
And this is why it is remarkable - it is love that drives the action. Not recognition, not fame, but simply love for another person. And he does it, not expecting anything in return, but simply because he wants his son to smile.
Tina, thanks for sharing that because it has really spoken to me…
August 11, 2006 at 7:16 am
ericsweiven
cried, balled is more like it. my heart was pierced, thinking about how this father has cared for, loved, his son. and to go against all the nay sayers early in his life, i wonder if i would be as commited and i feel conflicted. not sure what breaks my heart more, this father’s devotion or my sincere look in the mirror wondering…
thank you tina.
August 11, 2006 at 7:33 am
parke
I can never hear this story enough. Thank you.
August 11, 2006 at 8:51 am
Rachel
Absolutely incredible! What a beautiful story of hope and love and sacrifice. I find it hard to put into words what that made me feel. I cried and cried. And I can REALLY cry as it is so now I am truly a wreck but completely inspired.
Thanks Tina
August 11, 2006 at 9:28 am
obahsomah
I’ve never seen or heard this story.
I saw your heading, read the first little bit of this and stopped. Yesterday I didn’t want to get in that place. But when rachel told me to come read it I thought I’d give it a go today.
I read it…their story is a sweet story…but that wasn’t what made me cry.
Sitting in a “care-conference” with all of Max’s doctors two years ago they were asking us if we wanted to go through with a surgery to extend his life, but forever handicap him with a vent and tube to breathe, or take him off the vent and let nature take it’s course. This was an insult to us.
Steve said to the doctors in that room, “We not only want our son to get better, and be able to breathe on his own, we want him to be well enough to walk…no we want him to run marathons!”. This of course made the doctors pause. These poor naive parents they must think. The next day Max coughed the breathing tube he had been on for a month out. he has breathed perfectly on his own ever since.
Some days it seems that the marathons will never come…somedays it seems the crawling will never come. So the tears I get from this video aren’t for this father and son duo…but rather for the hope I get watching it. Even if Max never walks or runs…he can still accomplish much…even if it is through the help of his parents.
Thank you for sharing…thank you for helping me see that hope today.
August 11, 2006 at 9:43 am
Tina
Thanks everyone for your comments!
Lori - I would love to have coffee. Where are you living now? When are you available?
Deana - I thought this would give you a kind of hope far beyond what any of us experienced. You were on my mind as I watched the video. I LOVE the way you love Max. Your love carries Max (figuratively and literally) like the father in this story carries his son … Deana, you inspire me!
August 11, 2006 at 9:46 am
myvoiceishis
sobbing…
I’ve read this father/son story before. It’s incredible. Thank you for sharing that with us. What makes this an amazing story is the selflessness of this father. He gave his son the chance to feel the breeze on his face. To say I can and I did. This puts me in a place where I am self assesing my relationship to my Father. The sacrifices that he makes, the times where he is swimming and pulling me along as I sit and just enjoy the view. The kind of love that this father has for his son is a glimpse of the kind of love He has for me, for each of us. This father went above and beyond, when others said “no way”, he continued to find a way. That’s what Our Father does for us. We say no way and give up and He says “Yes you can, I’ll take you there”.
August 11, 2006 at 9:51 am
Tina
For all of you who have heard this story before …. does anyone know anything about the boy’s mom? Is she in his life? If not, I sure wonder what kind of support system the dad has.
August 11, 2006 at 10:43 am
Deana
Here is their website… Team Hoyt
August 11, 2006 at 11:40 am
drlori
I’m in Whittier now! I have a week or two before the craziness of school starts… when are you free? Email me through Xanga!
August 12, 2006 at 4:45 am
awarriorprincess
I love this story. They were on Oprah a couple of weeks back and you would have thought I was at a funeral. I think passion inspires passion. Unfortunately for me, my passion is liquid and usually overflows from my eyes.
September 2, 2006 at 4:38 am
Rachel
Hey Tina,
how are you doing? Thinking of you. We’ve just booked flights to Florida for February for the Humana conference - very excited! Just wondered if you or Dean’ll be going. If not, you’ll just have to come and visit us soon!!
September 14, 2006 at 8:22 am
Deana
Ok….it has been WAY too long since you’ve updated!