Get the kleenex out. You have to see this video

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Subject: Get the kleenex out. You have to see this video

When we think we have it tough, look what love accomplished with these two!!!!

Strongest Dad in the World

Those of you that know me know that I strive to be an outstanding father.

I give my kids mulligans, work to pay for their firewalks, and take them on

the road with me whenever I can. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I 'm lame.

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 crowd 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.''

I call this " never underestimate a fathers love " ~ Here's the video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ