Taking Care of Rick, Part II

There are two things that I will forever associate with Rick: The Boston Marathon, and Walden Pond. Rick lives to race. That's what he does. It's who he is. He and his father participate in at least 52 races a year, I think. That number is just off the top of my head, but they race at least once almost every weekend, sometimes twice. Some of the races they run are short, like the occasional 5 or 10k. Some of them are longer, like the 6 Iron Man Triathlons they have competed in around the world. Again, that number is just the one I used when I was working for him. It wouldn't surprise me if they have now been in far more than just 6. At this point, most people ask me, "How do they do triathlons?" Well, Dick pushes Rick in the running part, of course, and they have a special bike that they can strap Rick into for the biking section. For the swim, Dick puts Rick in an inflatable raft, which has a line connected to a vest that Dick wears while he swims, allowing Dick to tow Rick. Yes, I've seen videos of it, and it's just as amazing as you think it is. But the Boston Marathon is their race. Rick actually graduated from Boston University, and so feels like there are parts of the race that belong to him, like the road through Kenmore Square where I first saw him. Ironically, during the 2+ years I worked for Rick, I only worked about half a dozen races. I took care of him mostly on weekdays, and the races, of course, are on the weekends. But I did get to work the morning of the Boston Marathon. What a trip! Rick and Dick were getting interviewed at every turn, and everybody knew who they were. They were also the very first people on the starting line. The wheelchairs start first, of course, and when Dick pushed Rick out to the big yellow line on the road, a huge cry went up from the who knows how many thousands of people who were waiting to start the race. Like I said, everybody knows them. Years later, when I was watching the marathon on TV, I waited to see Rick and Dick cross the finish line. After they crossed, the media coverage of the race stopped. I realized that the television crews were waiting to cut the feed until the Hoyts had finished. After all, you can't have the Boston Marathon without the Hoyts. It will forever be their race. (By the way, note the time on the clock behind them in the picture. That's a fairly accurate reflection of Team Hoyt's Marathon time. Pretty speedy.) But like I said, my time spent with Rick was rarely spent at a race, strange as that may sound. A large part of my time with Rick was spent at Waldon Pond. Rick loves to swim, surprisingly enough. And he can do it, sort of. He and I would go to the pool at BU, which had lift access to the lanes. I would get in with him, tread water next to him, then flip him over, face down in the water, for 5 seconds while he flailed every limb, propelling himself about 3 feet. Then I would flip him back, let him breathe, and wait for his signal that he was ready to be flipped again. If and when he got too cold or too tired to swim anymore, I would then tow him, one hand wrapped around his chest, the other arm swimming the side stroke, his head resting on my shoulder, as long as he wanted to be towed. We did this a lot, and it was a work out for both of us. Rick had a goal that summer. His goal was to swim across Walden Pond. Walden is not a small pond, but it's not tremendously wide if you cut straight across it. Still, it seemed a rather formidable goal, but I came to understand that if Rick wanted you to do something for him, you did it. We spent countless hours in the BU pool, working up both of our endurance. And once the weather got warm enough, we headed out to the pond. The first time we tried it, I thought we were both going to drown. The water was colder than we expected, and Rick practically seized, he was shivering so hard. I was cold, too, and got exhausted well before we reached the other side of the pond. Bad news when you are responsible for somebody else's safety. A lifeguard saw me drag him out of the pond, and came rushing over, thinking Rick was a drowning victim. Well, not yet, I thought, when the lifeguard quickly asked me if Rick had drowned. But another trip like that, and he will definitely be fish food! We were both completely spent, and Rick was dangerously cold, too cold to go back in the water for the return trip to the original shore. I started to pick him up to carry him back around the shore of the pond, when that blessed lifeguard volunteered to do it for me. He carried Rick back to his chair, and I slowly pushed him back to his van, convinced that this would be the end of the whole affair. Silly me. It would take a lot more than cold water and a tired PCA to make Rick quit. Of course you know by now that we made it across that pond, both across and back, several times. Rick pushed us both beyond what I thought either one of us was capable of, time and time again. That's another thing Rick does. He pushes people beyond what they think their limits are, forcing them to find the parts of themselves that will give a little more, even when they think that surely they are empty. Rick will always ask you for everything you've got. After all, it's no less than he asks of himself.