Melissa - My Champion

I went to Warm Springs one hot summer nigh in June to run a race sponsored by the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institution for Rehabilitation.  The Institution works with 5,000 people annually with various disabilities.  The race was to raise money for the seated and mobility clinic; in other words, children and young adults confined to wheelchairs.

Prior to the 10K race, a shorter race of 2K was held for the youngsters who were clients of the clinic.  I watched one little girl who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old nor weigh more than sixty pounds push the tires on her wheelchair so hard that she almost won the female division of the race.  She finished a close second to a young lady who was much older, bigger and stronger than she was.  But I promise you she didn’t go down without a fight, struggling so hard that on that final uphill with everything she had in hopes of passing that one last competitor.

After all the wheelchair-bound children had completed their race, the ‘able-bodied,’ as the starter called them, competed in theirs.  The field wasn’t too deep, and I managed to with the Men’s Masters division.

At the awards ceremony, trophies were awarded to the winners of the wheelchair race first.  ‘Melissa,’ as I discovered her name to be, was called to the stage to receive her award.  Melissa wheeled up the ramp to the stage to receive her second place trophy, six inches of metal and marble which made her break out in a big smile.  I noticed her mother in the crowd with a smile even bigger than her daughter’s.

Afterwards, awards were presented to the ‘able-bodied,’ and I was called to the stage to receive my trophy which was – and I am not exaggerating – three feet tall!  It made me think about the effort I put out for my race, and then about the effort Melissa had put out for hers, and I realized who the TRUE champion was.  I looked where Melissa and her mother had been in the audience but didn’t see them.  I went to some of the people in that vicinity and they told me Melissa and her mother had left.  Fortunately they were able to point me in the direction they had headed.

I found them just as the mother had gotten Melissa seated in the back of their van, and noticed Melissa was still holding onto her trophy for dear life.  I introduced myself and said I had won the Master’s competition, and asked Melissa if she would do me the honor of accepting MY trophy, as HER effort that evening had been much greater than mine and that she was the real champion.  Melissa broke into the biggest smile I have ever, and I do mean EVER seen and she immediately pried the engraved plate off of her trophy, did the same to mine, and placed HER plate on her new trophy!  I felt honored that Melissa accepted, and I knew by the tears running down her mother’s face that she was OK with it as well.

I asked Melissa if I would see her at the race next year, and she told me she would be and that she was going to win a trophy for me!

And do you know what?  I’ve already selected a spot on the mantel for it.