Reprinted from June 9, 2012
With a new conclusion
Have you ever scored the basket that won the game? Have you ever heard the roar from the bleachers as the crowd rose to its feet and made the hairs on your neck tingle?
I never have, but I wonder what it must feel like when they pass the ball to you in the last few seconds and you make the decision to go for it. And you make it!
I saw Michael Jordan do it, over and over. I saw Rafael Nadal throw himself on the red dirt at Roland Garros in tennis. I remember Pat Cash climbing up into the stands at Wimbledon to hug his parents after winning the men’s championship. I remember Roger Federer with tears in his eyes when Nadal beat him the first time.
But you know what? Those guys don’t really inspire me any more. Of course, I could never be like them but what they did is too far removed from ordinary life. Even they can’t do what they once did any more. But to see someone overcome personal disaster? To see someone take the punches that life uses to knock you off your feet and then get back up, that’s what inspires me now.
For example, take Roy, not his real name because he’s a very private guy and would call the cops if I embarrassed him by identifying him. Roy is an easy-going guy. No airs about him. Just a nice guy who always volunteered at church to give a hand no matter what they were trying to do. Sometimes he would make financial donations and not reveal his identity. He isn’t a young guy, but he would be out there doing crop walk in the noon-day sun to raise funds.
But do you know what happened to Roy? He got run over by a crazy driver! Through no fault of his own, mind you. He was hit and left at the side of the road! That’s right. The other driver did not stop!
When the ambulance drove Roy to the hospital, the doctors decided he had to lose his foot. They had to amputate his leg above the ankle. And the son of a xyz#$@ who caused the accident never looked back!
I had to ask myself why do bad things happen? And when they do happen why do they choose good people?
Now back when I was growing up, I played soccer so much I used to pray I would never break a bone. The very idea of losing a leg filled me with such dread that I forbade my imagination to go there. Even when I got chicken pox and sores broke out all over my body I felt so violated. So the idea that not only could I lose a leg but the guy who did it could get away scot-free, just made me say things I would never write.
But do you know the most amazing thing? I believe I got more upset than Roy did. I believe I used more expletives about that driver than Roy even knows.
Roy just focused on recovering as quickly as possible in the hospital so he could get out of there. Then he spent days in a rehab unit doing physical therapy three times a week until he learned to get around by himself with a crutch. Now he lives alone, but fortunately his brother stayed with him for the first couple weeks.
Never complaining, he got himself a prosthesis and literally just practiced putting one foot in front of the other. One day at a time. And do you know what he’s doing now? He’s back driving and leading a full life again.
I can’t get over this guy. It’s one thing to score a goal when you’re young and gifted and as they say “full of spit and vinegar”, but get old and gray and look up ahead where you can just make out Father Time waiting there with chemotherapy and a scythe, and you’ll know you need more than muscle memory. You need real spunk.
So what I have to say about Roy is that while Henry David Thoreau said, that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation”, I am thankful that some men lead lives of quiet inspiration.
And for that I am grateful.
Now I don’t know if you ever heard Quincy Jones and the All Star Chorus sing Handel’s Hallelujah, but that’s how I feel right about now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkbuHu2D_Ro
• P.S. This article ran June 9, 2012 the year Philip Humber, on Roy’s favorite team, the Chicago White Sox, pitched the third perfect game in franchise history against the Seattle Mariners in Seattle, Wash., and the White Sox won the game, 3-0. It was the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history.
Roy, whose real name is Rick Dearborn of North Aurora, died with the same nonchalance with which he lived his life: No sirens, no ventilator, just quietly in the arms of the angels. He was an inspiration to the very end.
Thanks again, Rick, for being the Man You Are!