you guys have to see this.. - email i had to pass on
paradisemommy wrote: my friend sent me this email but i must warn you..grab your kleenex..i'm still bawling..this is absolutely amazing..
The following story absolutely touched my heart. I'd like to share it with you folks. Stick with it and watch the youtube video at the end.
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 stink.
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, whe n 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 w eren'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 Ri ck 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 speec hes 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.'
Here's the video.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg
mckayleesmom replied: I have seen that before...It was awesome... 
holley79 replied: That was so awesome.
luvmykids replied: I saw them on TV, I cried the entire time. And tried not to complain about anything for a few days 
MommyToAshley replied: 
That is the most incredible and touching thing I have ever seen in my life.
My3LilMonkeys replied:
ashtonsmama replied: I've seen it before on TV.
Absolutely amazing family.
LibraGirl replied: Wow, that is amazing. I passed it on  Thank you for sharing it!
CantWait replied: Ok now I can't stop crying
Maddie&EthansMom replied: That story was so touching. I can't bring myself to watch the video.
MomToJade&Jordan replied: Wow Tammy. TFS this. What an incredible story.
BAC'sMom replied:   TFS
TLCDad replied: What an amazing story! Thank you for posting this. God bless you all!
MyBrownEyedBoy replied: After I saw that man's face and the painstaking way he was typing, I had to pause it and go get my boy. I sat with him on my lap and cried and watched. Thank you.
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