inspiration – Suzanne Whitfield Vince

The Meaning Of Life

Suzanne Vince — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 12:00:03 +0000

Dick and Rick Hoyt. Photo courtesy of www.TeamHoyt.com

In honor of the Kona Ironman World Championship tomorrow, I would like to share the amazing story of Dick and Rick Hoyt, a father and son duo whose story epitomizes the words love and devotion.

After being deprived of oxygen at the time of his birth in 1962, Rick Hoyt was diagnosed as a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. As a result, his brain cannot send the correct messages to his muscles. Because of the severity of Rick’s condition, his parents were encouraged to institutionalize him because there was no chance of a recovery or of Rick living a “normal” life.

His parents, Dick and Judy Hoyt, wouldn’t hear of it. They were determined to give Rick every opportunity to live as normal a life as possible. Rick’s mother spent hours every day teaching him the alphabet and at the age of 11, Rick was fitted with a computer that enabled him to communicate. At 13 he attended public school and went on to graduate from Boston University in 1993.

Team Hoyt began in 1977 after Rick read an article about racing and became inspired. His father, Dick Hoyt, then 37, was not a runner.

But for his son, he became one.

After their first race, Rick told his father, “Dad, when I’m running, it feels like I’m not handicapped.” After their first five-mile run, Dick began running every day. When Rick was at school, Dick ran with a bag of cement in the wheelchair.

Dick and Rick Hoyt running first Boston Marathon. Photo courtesy of www.TeamHoyt.com

Team Hoyt began racing nearly every weekend, and to date the father-son duo have competed more than 1,000 endurance events, including 70 marathons and almost 300 triathlons. They have run the Boston Marathon 30 times, and in 1992 they biked and ran across the US, completing 3,735 miles in 45 days.

And they have completed six Ironman Triathlons.

Ironman will push the limits of even the fittest athlete in the best imaginable conditions. Imagine swimming 2.4 miles in the Pacific Ocean. Imagine biking 112 miles through barren lava fields with 45mph crosswinds and temperatures up to 120 degrees, and running 26.2 miles in temperatures that can average 95 degrees in the shade.

Now imagine doing that while towing another human being.

Dick pulling Rick on swim. Photo courtesy of www.TeamHoyt.com

For the swim portion of a triathlon, Dick attaches a rope to his body and pulls Rick in a boat. For the cycle portion, Rick rides on the front of a specially-designed tandem bike. For the run, Dick pushes Rick in his wheelchair.

And Ironman courses, by design, are never flat.

Here is their story:

Dick Hoyt is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Air National Guard. Now 73, he and Rick spend less time racing and more time doing speaking engagements. For more information, visit Team Hoyt’s website at www.teamhoyt.com.

What about you? Who or what inspires you?

Life From the Rearview Mirror

Suzanne Vince — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 13:00:42 +0000

Image courtesy of www.123newyear.com

I wish I could take back all the New Year’s Eves where I said “good riddance” to another crappy year. I wish I had then what I have now. Perspective. A passion for life. And an understanding that, even during challenging times, there is beauty in life.

As I look back over 2013, I’ll admit it’s difficult to remember the first 111 days because, compared to the rest of the year so far, they were pretty Vanilla. Not that there’s anything wrong with Vanilla. It’s just not, well, Chocolate.

And so, the life lessons I gained this year began on the day I was told I needed a breast biopsy, April 22^nd. And here they are, in chronological order:

Hawaiian Seashell. Photo by Suzanne Vince

Paradise: Found
A month before my bilateral mastectomy, Hubby and I went to Kauai where we discovered the Island Paradise’s best kept secret: The Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF). Seriously, if your or your significant other is or was in the military, you must know about this place.

The PMRF is the world’s largest instrumented, multi-dimensional testing and training missile range (where they do lots of secret squirrel stuff) AND they happen to have 25 fabulous ocean-front cottages on a pristine, nearly isolated beach. Take a look:

Photo by Suzanne Vince

Beach at PMRF (Barking Sands). Photo by Suzanne Vince

And did I mention it’s only $85 per night? But, you must be active or retired military (any branch).

There is only one “w” in Downton Abbey
Due to societal pressure the overwhelming hype surrounding this show, I bought the first season on DVD to watch while I was home recovering from surgery. It only took until midway through the second season before it dawned on me that the show was not called Downtown Abbey.

And I’m a writer.

I hope my Twitter friends (who must’ve cringed every time I tweeted) can forgive me for the faux pas and understand that I was on high doses of serious narcotics during this time. I am happy to report, though, that the show most certainly lives up to the acclaim it has received.

Yes, it does.

Home and Garden Television (HGTV) is Highly Addictive (Seriously)
Do yourself a favor and don’t even get started. Unless, of course, you have more spare time than you know what to do with, and a sizeable bank account to fund all the projects the show will inspire in you. Enough said.

There is Beauty in the Midst of Suffering
Suffering is everywhere. And so is beauty. But how, when we’re suffering, do we let beauty in?

Recovering from major surgery is no picnic. After encountering a number of complications, including a second emergency surgery, I began to wonder if I would ever feel like myself again. Physically or emotionally. But I tried every day to remind myself of the things I had to be grateful for: my life, an early diagnosis, my family. And I took walks along the river to drink in the beauty around me.

It’s important to remember—especially during the challenging times in life—that we have so much to be grateful for, and that it can almost always be worse.

There can be Love in the Midst of Hatred
In a recent post, Love, Loyalty and Bullying, I took a stand against the bullying of one of my sisters, Moon Flower. I made it clear that I have no room in my life for people who harbor hatred in their hearts.

What I didn’t say was how painful it was drawing that line in the sand, lifting the one foot that previously straddled it, and placing it firmly on the side of love, and compassion, and forgiveness. Because I deeply love the people on the other side of the line.

And so I will continue to pray that those who hate will someday learn that love is a precious gift, that one day each of us will need to be forgiven by someone we love, and that true peace can only come where there is forgiveness.

What about you? What lessons have you learned in 2013?

Cancer From the Sidelines – Part 1

Suzanne Vince — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 11:00:06 +0000

Yes, cancer sucks.

Okay, that’s an obvious understatement, but it’s about the most descriptive adjective I can use in print without resorting to words I promised by 14 year old daughter I wouldn’t use. It definitely sucks most for the person who has cancer, but it is not easy being a bystander to cancer either.

It’s pretty amazing to think that I didn’t actually know anyone with cancer until sometime in my thirties. It was then that my friend Kristy was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time at the age of 30. Her first battle with the dreaded disease was when she was 25. The first time, she opted for a lumpectomy, but the second time she went for the bilateral mastectomy (removal of both breasts) with reconstructive surgery.

I remember visiting Kristy in the hospital a couple of days after her surgery. She was alone in the room when I entered, and she was crying because the pain was so intense. When she saw me, she immediately wiped her eyes and apologized to me. She apologized to me for crying. For being so weak.

In that moment, she became my hero. Not because she was so strong, but because she was so brave.

The covers of blissful ignorance were ripped viciously from my eyes that day, and the realization that bad things happen to good people struck me full force. I’d known this all along, of course, but now I was witnessing it first-hand. Kristy was one of the kindest people I knew. And if cancer could strike someone like her, it could happen to me, too.

I never looked at my life in quite the same way after that.

Cancer didn’t touch my life again until six years later when, fresh from my honeymoon where my new husband and I were living once again in ignorant bliss, I receive a phone call from my father telling me he had esophageal cancer. My mother had passed away only 11 months before and suddenly my entire world started spinning out of control.

Oh God, please let my father live. I had never really needed him before, but I sure needed him now.

My father and I loved each other dearly, but we’d also had a somewhat contentious relationship. He would say something hurtful, I would get defensive, and he would yell at me, tell me I was being too defensive. And so it went. I cursed the fates that took my beloved mother before my father, but I would soon come to understand why it was so.

Several months after my mother’s passing (and before my father’s diagnosis), my father and I had a huge fight on the phone. He once again said something hurtful (this time it involved my mother), I once again got defensive and so on. I slammed the phone down and vowed I would never speak to him again. And then I had an idea. I would write him a letter.

In my letter I told him that the reason I was always so defensive was because he was always attacking me. That nothing I ever did was good enough for him (I was a college graduate and a CPA for crying out loud), and that I felt as though he couldn’t love me unless I was living my life according to the Book of Dad. I mailed the letter (he’s was an old fashioned kind of guy) and I waited. And waited. And then, about 3 weeks later, I got a letter back from him.

In his letter he told me that I was absolutely right, and that he could never see how hard he was being on me. That of his 8 daughters (yes, I’m the youngest of 8), I was the most like him, and he had his own vision of how my career should go.

He validated all the pain and all the insecurities that I’d felt my entire life. And in that single act of reading his letter, I forgave him. He asked me for a second chance (while stating that he did not deserve one), which of course I gave him, and in that moment, I knew why my mother left before he did.

I will be forever grateful that we mended our relationship before cancer because I knew it was from his heart, and not borne out of his need to make things right before dying.

My dad and I: Radiation, Day 1

And so the cancer journey began for us. I took my dad to endless doctor, radiation and chemo appointments because I was the most geographically located to do so. And as we would sit in the waiting rooms together, he would ask me which of his possessions I wanted, tell me what his desires were regarding his “girlfriend” (don’t ask), and how, as the executor of his estate, he wanted everything settled (including the disposition of the home he and my mother had shared for twenty years).

It was heartbreaking to watch a man who had once been larger than life fade away before my very eyes, but I was grateful that we were, at last, becoming friends.

After dropping my father off at home and tucking him into bed before heading back to work, I would sit in my car and cry. I’d cry for my father, and for myself, and for the family Christmases that would be no more. And then I’d go back to my job. At least until they fired me for missing so much work.

My father put up a valiant fight, and just as he had been at the age of 14 when he stole his brother’s birth certificate, joined the Army, and fought valiantly in World War 2, he was a true soldier to the end. A noble warrior.

And when he died, I became an orphan.

Everyone’s life has been affected in some way by cancer. How has it affected your life? Do you draw inspiration from the courage and bravery of friends or family members who have battled cancer?

Repost from October 1, 2013