What A Dad will do

SesameStreet

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This is somewhat unusual for Literotica, but I was so impressed by this true story that I had to share. Be sure and watch the video at the bottom of the Link.


Be Inspired by The Strongest Dad in the World
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."

http://www.fatherville.com/Articles/Frontpage/Be_Inspired_by_The_Strongest_Dad_in_the_World/
 
SesameStreet said:
This is somewhat unusual for Literotica, but I was so impressed by this true story that I had to share. Be sure and watch the video at the bottom of the Link.

*sob*

oh, damn, that really made me cry... *sniff*

This line:

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

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
 
and I thought my dad was the strongest dad in the world.

I still do.
Apparently there are several.

I remember being 5 or 6 years old and how huge his shoulders were and how he could swim drag 3 of his sons along in the water as we tried to hang on. He was 50 then... I'm not 50 yet and I don't have that strength or energy. Maybe my own children will see some strength in me.
 
WARNINGWARNING said:
and I thought my dad was the strongest dad in the world.

I still do.
Apparently there are several.

I remember being 5 or 6 years old and how huge his shoulders were and how he could swim drag 3 of his sons along in the water as we tried to hang on. He was 50 then... I'm not 50 yet and I don't have that strength or energy. Maybe my own children will see some strength in me.
Mine was a construction worker. Huge guy. I was told by my older brother (who worked with him) that my dad would carry two 100lb+ I-beams on his shoulders and walk across a beam 8" wide, several hundred feet above the ground. If you come to Chicago, you will either cross a bridge he built or go by a building he worked on. He didn't play with us that much, usually too tired from breaking his back so we'd have something better. Every time I look at my daughter I wonder if it's possible there is anything I could do to make her that proud of me.

Still, this story borders on the unbelievable. You go, guys!
 
I think amicus needs a mention in this thread.

He became a minister so that he could give his son and fiancée, now wife, the wedding they wanted.

See this

It may not be the physical strain that started this thread, but doing things to please your children is what Dads (and Mums) are about.

Although I am a minister too, the laws of the UK do not allow me to conduct marriage ceremonies. I can do blessings, and I'll be doing one at a distance for Mat and Min.

Rev and ancient Og
 
I feel very inadequate as a parent after reading and watching this.
 
It amazed me that this man could do a triathlon carrying his son via one mode or another when he was past 60. Perhaps the love that he felt for his son gave him the added strength. Some things are just beyond our comprehension.

All of us do not have this much physical endurance or even good health. But each of us who is a parent should strive to find someway to make our children feel unique, special, and loved.
 
Most parents in one way or another are heroes.

Look at the single woman who holds down two or more jobs so her kids can eat, go to school and learn.

Look at the father who works nights so he can be there for his children during the day.

Look at the parents who scrimp and save so they can send their children to college so their lives may be better than their parents.

Look at the parents who break with their families, (as mine did,) so they can teach their children to be open minded and able to learn.

Look at the parents who accept their children for what they are, and not what they wished they would be.

These are the true heroes in my mind. Those people who live next door or down the block from you. The people who sacrifice so much and yet ask so little.

There is a woman in my Mobile Home Park. She weighs maybe 90 pounds soaking wet. She is 60+ years old and is working so she can take care of her Grandchild. (Her daughter is so messed up with drugs it isn't even comical.) This woman is trying to make ends meet and trying to raise this child so he can be a productive member of society. She pushes him to do well in school, she fights against his wanting to join the neighborhood wanna be gangs. She, in my mind, is a hero just as the father mentiond above is one.

Cat
 
SeaCat said:
Most parents in one way or another are heroes.
Cat

I would agree except for the parents who abuse their children. I will never understand how a parent could physically abuse their children.
 
SesameStreet said:
I would agree except for the parents who abuse their children. I will never understand how a parent could physically abuse their children.
Or neglect them. Either is as foreign to me as deciding not to breathe.
 
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