Fully Alive_Discovering What Matters Most
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Rosario and Eric Marin continue to inspire. (Rosario Marin)
Though little Pearl was never an athlete, her story, and the bravery of her parents, touched the lives of everyone in the Special Olympics movement. (Dr. Dicken Yung)
Frank Stephens, another amazing Special Olympics athlete and blogger, has become the world’s leading spokesperson for ending the derogatory use of the words “retard” and “retarded.” (Scott K. Brown Photography)
Marty Sheets was one of Special Olympics’ earliest athletes, attending our very first games when he was only fifteen. (Special Olympics)
Donal Page (front row, right, with fellow athletes and coaches) stole his nation’s heart—and mine, too—at the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games Motor Activities Training Program in Ireland. “Grit” never had a better embodiment! (Special Olympics)
I visited Daniel Thompson, a visionary man of faith, at his home in West Virginia. Although he died shortly after this photo was taken, he was full of laughter and peace. (Thompson Family Collection)
My daughter Rose and the world-class swimmer Andy Miyares at our 2010 Global Congress in Morocco. Andy is believed to be the only swimmer with an intellectual disability ever ranked in the top ten by the U.S. Masters. (Diego Azubel)
Everyone at the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Idaho—including (from left to right) myself, the Irish athlete Ben Purcell, and my son Tim—is experiencing the joy of being fully alive! (Diego Azubel)
I got a chance to celebrate with the floor hockey team from Afghanistan at the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Korea. The bravery of our athletes and volunteers in Afghanistan is beyond comprehension. They have withstood threats, bomb attacks, and every form of adversity, but they labor on and work tirelessly to bring our movement to people with intellectual disabilities who deserve this—and more. (Diego Azubel)
In recent years, China has become the largest nation in the Special Olympics movement, with more than a million athletes participating every year. (Diego Azubel)
Celebrating my mother’s eighty-fifth birthday with my siblings and their spouses. Front row, from left: Maria, Eunice, and Sargent Shriver. Second row, from left: Bobby, Malissa, Alina, Linda, and Jeanne. Back row, from left: Anthony, me, and Mark. (Larry Levin/Shriver Family Collection)
What matters most: Family is both whom you’re related to and whom you give yourself to. Here, I’m with the people who have given me the most: (from left) Caroline, Rose, Kathleen, Tim, Linda, and Sam. (Shriver Family Collection)
Maureen Yap (left) was the inspiration for Linda’s and her mom, Anne’s, Special Olympics Unified Sports team, where Sam (in costume, center) and Caroline (right) and all our kids learned about “the fun that lasts.” (Shriver Family Collection)
Caroline (left) and Kathleen (right) have both played on Unified Sports teams with Joelle Packard (center), who is always smiling. (Dana Packard)
The Egyptian athlete Moutafa Mahmoud A. Hamid says it all: Give yourself fearlessly to the game and you will feel fully alive! (Khaled Elfiqi)
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Timothy Shriver is an educator, a social activist, a film producer, and an entrepreneur. He has led Special Olympics, an organization that serves upward of four million athletes in 170 countries, for more than a decade. Shriver is perhaps best known for cofounding—and currently chairing—the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the leading research organization in the United States in the field of social and emotional learning. He lives in Maryland with his wife. They have five children.
Sarah Crichton Books
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2014 by Timothy Shriver
All rights reserved
First edition, 2014
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following previously published material:
Excerpt from “I Rise! A Tribute to Special Olympics” by Maya Angelou. Reprinted by permission of The Helen Brann Agency, Inc.
Excerpts from “Postscript” from Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966–1996 by Seamus Heaney. Copyright © 1998 by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shriver, Timothy.
Fully alive: discovering what matters most / Timothy Shriver.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-374-28091-8 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4299-4279-9 (ebook)
1. Special Olympics. 2. Sports for people with mental disabilities. I. Title.
GV722.5.S64 S57 2014
796.087'4—dc23
2014020245
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Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
* The events that A Personal Matter describes so poignantly are not entirely fictional: Oe wrote the book soon after the birth of his own son, Hikari, who had a life-threatening brain condition at birth. Doctors told the anxious parents that the operation required to save his life would leave him a vegetable, and advised that it would be more merciful simply to let him die. But the Oes refused to give up on their son. Hikari never learned to use language—but he did learn to compose music. His CDs have sold more than a million copies around the world.
* “Difability” is not a typo, and yet it is not a generally accepted word either. I use it often, however, to jog my consciousness out of the “dis” mind-set that so often includes subtle assumptions of lack of ability and negativity. “Dif,” on the other hand, invites the recognition that there are a million abilities and that each of us has many different ones. Some advocates in the disability world do not like the word “difability” because they are concerned that it diminishes the rightful pride that people can and should take in who they are, “disabilities” and all. I understand this sentiment and respect it. At the same time, I think using the word “difability” can help.