Dad, when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!
I have tried to be a good father, I really have. I gave my kids whatever I could. Worked extra to pay for their activities, their toys, cell phones, Christmas.
I’ve attended countless football games, choir recitals, and band concerts. I even drove my daughter back and forth to school just so she wouldn’t have to ride the bus.
I tried, really……I tried. But compared to Dick Hoyt…………
….I suck.
Meet The Hoyt Family
Rick Hoyt was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, cutting off oxygen to his brain. The result was brain damage and a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. His parents were told he’d be a vegetable all his life, with no use of his limbs, nor his voice. The doctors said to put him in an institution.
But his parents said no. They raised him just like they raised his two brothers. As normal as possible. In fact, they fought to get him admitted into public schools. “Because he couldn’t talk they thought he wouldn’t be able to understand, but that wasn’t true.” The dedicated parents taught Rick the alphabet. “We always wanted Rick included in everything,” his father, Dick Hoyt said. “That’s why we wanted to get him into public school.”
Using money the family managed to raise in 1972 - a group of university engineers built an interactive computer that would allow Rick to write, using slight head-movements. Rick called it his “communicator.” A cursor would move across a screen filled with rows of letters, and when the cursor highlighted a letter that Rick wanted, he would click a switch with the side of his head.
When the computer was originally brought home, Rick surprised his family with his first “spoken” words. They had expected perhaps “Hi, Mom” or “Hi, Dad.” But on the screen Rick wrote “Go Bruins.” The Boston Bruins were in the Stanley Cup finals that season, and his family realized he had been following the hockey games along with everyone else. “So we learned then that Rick loved sports.”
Dad, I Want To Do That
Three years later, one of Rick’s high school classmates was paralyzed in an accident. The school organized a charity run for him. Rick typed , “Dad, I want to do that.” His father, wondering how he would manage to run 5 miles himself, agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair. They finished next to last, but the smile on Rick’s face was worth a million bucks, said Dick. That night, Rick told his dad, “Dad, when we were running, I didn’t feel handicapped anymore”.
That sentence started a chain of events that still boggles the mind.
For the past twenty five years or more Dick has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. Eighty-five times he’s pushed 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.
Why? It makes his son feel normal.
24 Boston Marathons
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.
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much - except save his life. Two years ago Dick 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.”
Today, Rick lives by himself in an apartment in Brighton with the help of personal care assistants and the love of his father. He graduated from Boston University in 1993 with a degree in special education, and works at their computer laboratory helping to develop a system through which mechanical aids can be controlled by a paralyzed person’s eye-movements, when linked-up to a computer.
I am fully aware of everything that goes on around me and if someone takes the time to get to know me they will realize I am no different than anyone else…….
….other than the fact that I will not beat you in a foot race and you will never have to tell me to shut my mouth
I found the following video on Youtube. Grab a box of tissue and enjoy.
Truly, if you can believe, then ALL things are possible.
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