Mar

Together Can – Team Hoyt

Father and son... together they can!

It’s been such a long while since I last posted. More than six months have already passed since then. Work and a dead computer didn’t help to get me back sooner and what was then 2009 is now 2010. Time flies. So here now is my first post for 2010.

Sometimes it’s great to just wander around and explore. You never know what you might encounter and what pictures you might capture. So one fine day, while I was on one of my wanderings, I saw this father carrying his son on his shoulders. I took the shot then without any specific theme in mind. And I’m glad I did as it turned out to be just the shot I’m looking for that would beautifully capture the spirit of the story of Team Hoyt.

Team Hoyt? Who are they, you might ask. Well frankly, I wouldn’t have known who they are if it had not been for some people whom I came across during work who shared about how they were very moved and inspired by a father and son team who runs in marathons and participates in ironman triathlons together, and even once ran together across the USA in 45 days.

Now you may wonder what is so special about a father and son team doing all these together. Not very much until you realise that Rick, the son, has cerebral palsy.

So when they run, the father, Dick, pushes him in a special wheel-chair. When they cycle, Rick sits in front of a special bicycle while Dick pedals for both of them. And when they swim, Dick swims and pulls an inflatable dingy that Rick lies in. What an incredible expression of a father’s love for his son! When the child alone can’t, the father comes and supports the child and makes it a can!

All this is happening because Rick has a father who believed in him and did not give up on him even when the doctor told the father to forget about Rick and to put him away in an institution. And all this is happening because a father responded yes by running and pushing his son in a wheel-chair when his twelve-year-old paraplegic son said he wanted to participate in a five-mile charity run for a disabled athlete even though the father wasn’t in good health then.

Alone Rick could never run such a race. But together with his Dad they can and they became Team Hoyt.

Rick said to his Dad after the first race, “Dad, when I’m running it feels like my disability disappears…” and later much older in life Rick reflected, “You know I have thought long and hard about what I would do if I wasn’t in a wheel-chair. I love sports so maybe I would play hockey, basketball or baseball. But then I thought about it some more and what I would probably do first is to tell my Dad to sit down in the wheel-chair and now I would push him…”

Dick shared, “Rick is my motivator. He inspires me. To me he’s the one out there competing and I’m just loaning him my hands and my legs so that he can compete. There’s just something that gets into me when I’m out there competing with Rick that I can’t explain and we’re able to go faster. And it’s just an unbelievable feeling….” and “It’s Rick and I out there competing together. And it has really helped me ’cause I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life…and I am 59 years old and I feel I have a body of a 22-year-old person and it’s all his fault…” (looks lovingly at Rick and is moved to tears – catch it in the last video)

When two beings are fully committed and dedicated to each other, something wonderfully mysterious and inextricably beautiful takes place that goes beyond hard cold realities, transcending physical limitations and transporting both into the higher realm of the soul and spirit, and perhaps even heaven.

Dick is in his 60s now and Rick in his 40s. But they are still running and competing together just like they did in the very first race they ran together so many years ago…

Together, can.