At Home with Muhammad Ali

by Hana Ali

  “A month before the Holmes fight, I started to think something was wrong,” said Dad. “Two weeks before, I started getting more tired. But I thought it was because I was reaching the peak of my conditioning. If it’s age, I’m finished. I’m washed up. I’ll face it. But if it’s because I wasn’t healthy—because of the drugs . . . I shall return!”

  His doctors confirmed his thyroid prescription had drained his body of energy. So he came back once more. After the unexplained fatigue and exhaustion, he wasn’t yet convinced that he was through—and he wanted to go out a winner. Or at least looking and feeling better than he had the night he fought Holmes.

  “They always remember your last fight,” he said softly after losing. “Joe Louis was on the floor—everybody remembers that. So was Sugar Ray. I don’t want to end that way.”

  But as a reporter once wrote: “When you’re Muhammad Ali, there’s always one more mountain to climb.”

  When my father’s bruises healed and his body stopped aching, he started to dream yet again. On December 11, 1981, in Nassau, Bahamas, my father laced up his gloves for the final time. He fought his last fight against twenty-eight-year-old Trevor Berbick. Dad was one month shy of his fortieth birthday.

  “It was close,” he told a reporter after the fight. “If Berbick had been thirty-nine, like me, I would have beaten him. I found I couldn’t tie him up and move the way I wanted to. It was a good fight, but he was too young and too tough for me . . .”

  Dad had performed better than he did the year before against Larry Holmes, and he felt much better too. The sluggish, exhausted feeling that came over him before and during the Holmes fight was gone. But people could see something was still wrong. There were concerns before the fight about my father’s slurred speech and physical deterioration. Not to mention the fierce heat in the open-air arena. He’d fought under trying conditions before, but he was much younger then, and Parkinson’s wasn’t knocking on his door.

  When his last fight was over and the scorecards came in, my father lost by decision.

  “Father Time has caught up with me. I’m finished,” Dad said to a reporter after the fight. “I’ve got to face the facts. We all lose sometimes. We all grow old. This is the end.”

  When I was a little girl I saw an old issue of Time magazine on my father’s desk. The image on the cover made me cry. Daddy was pictured sitting on his stool in the corner of the ring, slumped over with his head hanging down. The headline above him read, “The Greatest Is Gone!”

  It was an image I had seen before—not on a magazine, but in real life. I remember my father standing outside the boxing ring after his last fight. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit, holding on to the ropes and staring into the ring. When Laila and I ran into the empty arena and jumped into his arms, his face lit up.

  I don’t know what he was doing in there, after everyone had gone, or if I’m remembering it correctly; we might have been at Fighter’s Heaven. But in those seconds before we ran up to him I remember feeling something was wrong; something about the way he was standing felt forlorn. He had been in the ring before looking tired after his training sessions and boxing expositions. Slumped over, resting his elbows on his thighs and his fists on his cheeks. The twinkle in his eyes only coming back at the sight of Laila and me. It’s probably why he always sent for us during training. Our presence brought him joy. But that day I was too young to understand that this was different. It wasn’t a sparring session. It was his last fight after nearly thirty years in the ring. A fight he’d hoped and believed he would win.

  Everyone wanted to know why he kept coming back. But there was no complicated answer. He had a vision and a dream. He believed in himself when no one else did, and he’d shown the world, and himself, so many times before what he was capable of. My father was born to do great things, and he found himself in many circumstances in his life where great things happened.

  When he stepped into the ring for his last two bouts, he wasn’t fighting Larry Holmes or Trevor Berbick—he was fighting Parkinson’s.

  “Ali knows he can’t go on forever,” said Sugar Ray Robinson in a 1979 issue of Jet magazine. “You can only go up so high, and then you’ve got to come down. He’s gone as high as any one boxer can go. He would be wise to retire.”

  Everyone has something to say about how great men live their lives—their triumphs and losses, their choices and mistakes. How they should have made better decisions, in the end.

  When it comes to reflecting upon a legacy like my father’s—and the decisions he made—I think Theodore Roosevelt said it best:

  There is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

  After the Berbick fight, it was time to say a final farewell to Deer Lake, Fighter’s Heaven. Farewell to the whistling winds, clear skies, and fresh mountain air. Farewell to the sound of branches crackling beneath my father’s boots as he jogged up Agony Hill: “The fight is won or lost long before I dance under those pearly lights.”

  Farewell to riding in the back seat of the Cadillac, following behind him in case he tired. If he did, he never stopped. He always kept going. There was always another mountain to climb.

  Farewell to his cabin in the woods. Farewell to the large stone rocks—Sonny Liston, Jack Johnson, Sugar Ray Robinson, Kid Gavilan . . . Farewell to the evergreens that reached for the sky and the sparkling stars he so often dreamed on. Farewell to the look in my father’s eyes as he admired the land. “I’m close to God up here.” Farewell to the sound of the bell that awoke his crew. Farewell to the sound of his axe chopping trees. “Teeeeeeeeeemberrrrrr!”

  Farewell to the smell of Lana’s cooking—roasted chicken and beans. And the scent of her greens, luring us in from the meadows and woods. “What you got cookin’, Lana?”

  And farewell to the sound of hopes and dreams. “Float like a butterfly! Sting like a bee! Rumble, young man, rumble . . .”

  “Hana, what’s your daddy’s name?”

  “Muhammad Ali!”

  “What do I do?”

  “Box!”

  Farewell.

  * * *

  “What next?” asked Robert Lipsyte in an interview from 1978, when my father was at the height of his fame—the looming, inescapable question so many athletes and entertainers are confronted with, and often haunted by. “What next?” was asked of my father countless times over the course of his life; Dad had the most recognized face on the planet, and he wasn’t going to hide it.

  Sometimes he’d say, “Now I will become the world’s greatest movie star!” To others, he said, “I will become the world’s greatest businessman!” And sometimes he’d answer, “I don’t worry about such things. God will tell me what to do when the time comes.”

  Once, when asked that question, he stared at the ground. “We’re all like little ants,” he said. “God sees all these little ants, millions of them, and he can’t answer all of their prayers and bless every one of them. But he sees one ant with a little influence that the other ants will follow. Then he might give that one ant some extra special powers. I’m like that special ant. Lots of other ants know me—follow me. So God gives me some extra strength.”

  Back home, the routine events that usually dominated the calm of day in our household had settled with the sun. My father was resting comfortably on the suede tufted sofa in his office. The television was playing softly in the background, and Laila and I were fast asleep. When the phone rang, Dad reached for his tape recorder and quickly answered the call, as though not quite ready for the adventures of his bustling day to end.

  “Hello . . .”

  “Muhammad, what will become of boxing now that you have [truly]
retired?”

  “Boxing will always continue with or without me. Just like presidents die, get old, or get assassinated. There will always be someone who will next take the job. You just have to get adjusted. The Concorde airplane is not very economical, and I understand they’re thinking about drowning it out. If they do, jet planes will still fly; you just won’t have a Concorde. I was the Concorde of boxing, and the other fighters are jets. I flew at a higher altitude than the rest, moving faster than the rest, and [I was] more progressive. But you’ll just have to get used to riding on jets again. You can’t ride the Concorde anymore . . .”

  36

  I picked up a copy of Star magazine and noted the date: October 9, 1984.

  “Being famous, rich, and respected, what else do you want from life?” a reporter asked my father after his Parkinson’s syndrome diagnosis was made public.

  “I want the strength to do good for those who aren’t as fortunate,” said Dad. “To make others a little happier. See a frowning face—turn it into a smiling one. I want no more starving children, begging for food or money, or crying in front of a dead parent or brother or sister killed by a bomb, by human madness . . .”

  A photograph of Dad sitting on the suede sofa in his office with me and all of my siblings around him graced the cover. I’m sitting on his lap. I read the headline: “Ali Comes Out Punching as He Embarks on World Peace Tour with Kids.” I put an extra pillow behind me, got comfortable, and settled in to read the article.

  His face has all the vibrancy and good looks of his youthful prime when he was The Greatest. But the voice, once so booming and clear, is an inaudible murmur. He talks in monosyllables. His right hand holds the left one to stop its trembling. Yet the mind is alert. The sense of humor remains. He’s still a jokester and a prankster.

  In his shaky mid-life, which has been complicated by a debilitating illness, Muhammad Ali has mellowed. The world now sees a more human side. The Champ refuses to accept any suggestion his life is at stake. Yet if he were to learn differently, what would he say?

  “If they tell me I’ve got one, two, three, six months left, I’ll be happy. I’ll be happy because I would tell myself that it’s Allah’s will and that it’ll be that much sooner that I’d get to meet Him.”

  Since his ailment was diagnosed as Parkinson’s syndrome, a progressive disorder marked by tremors and weakness of muscles, Ali is giving the future a fresh look with the same confidence he has exuded throughout his memorable boxing career.

  “I feel fine,” Dad said as he packed for a quick trip to an Islamic conference in Africa’s Sudan, to be followed by a global journey with his favorite people—twenty-five children from different countries. He was planning to take them on visits to the Vatican, the White House, Buckingham Palace, the Kremlin, Peking, and India among other sites and nations around the world.

  “These children will meet the Pope,” said Dad, “President Reagan, Queen Elizabeth, Konstantin Chernenko, Deng Xiaoping, and Indira Gandhi, to ask them what they’re doing and building for the children of the world.”

  When asked about his health, my father said,

  Contrary to what others have been saying, I am not suffering. I am not crazy. And I am not dying of Parkinson’s disease. My hands do tremble a bit and my speech has slowed down, but it’s because of another problem, nothing as serious as Parkinson’s.

  “My life is definitely not at stake,” said Dad. “The Champ is not dead yet.”

  His physician, Dr. Martin Ecker, clarified that recent tests conducted in New York’s Presbyterian Hospital indicated my father suffered Parkinson’s-like symptoms, which might have been brought on by punches to his head during his twenty-five years in the ring. His slurred speech and shakes, Dad conceded, could have been the cumulative result of the 1.5 million blows to the head he estimates to have taken in the 150,000 rounds he’d boxed.

  “Or,” he added thoughtfully, “it could be from a motorcycle accident eleven years ago. I fell and, although I had on a helmet, I could have suffered a head injury I wasn’t aware of.”

  “Boxing means everything to me,” he went on. “I wore the Golden Gloves at sixteen, won the Olympic gold at eighteen, and was heavyweight champion three times. I became famous. And I’m now using my fame and world credibility to promote wonderful causes. I’m loved. People are constantly visiting me. I’m not an idiot. I have my eyes opened and I know some people take advantage of me, or try to. But I can be smart and clever. Muhammad Ali is not ruined . . . He is still ‘The Greatest,’ the Champ.”

  * * *

  The final article I read came from Jet magazine, dated May 13, 1985. My father gave the interview one year after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome. His symptoms continued to progress, and the following year he would be diagnosed with the disease.

  Although the forty-three-year-old suffers no discomfort, it pains him when he is constantly asked about his health. One afternoon he sat down and told Jet magazine what to tell his fans: “Tell them I’m happy.” He smiled as he spoke softly. There was a touch of sadness in his face as he mustered the smile to respond to those who say they feel sorry for him.

  “I don’t know why they feel sorry,” he said. “I have a beautiful wife. I have two beautiful daughters I’m living with. I have eight kids in all—seven girls and one boy. All are healthy. I have more fans and more loved ones than any one person in the world. I’ve been invited to countries of the world. I stay busy from day to day. I have so many people who love me—and I love them. I’m the last person they should feel sorry for.” He paused, then said with deliberate emphasis: “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m happy and doing really good. I’m happier now than when I was boxing.”

  Three months earlier, in February of 1985, my father had sat behind his desk in his office dressed in a basic brown suit and a short-sleeve white shirt—his favorite attire at the time. A reporter from the Los Angeles Times was in the chair beside him. He was surrounded by hundreds of letters from people all around the globe. A few thousand posts from children from Australia, Lebanon, Africa, England, Japan sat in a neat stack in the corner of the room. They would be placed in the basement soon, with the twenty-two trunks full of answered mail.

  “You must have answered every child in the world by now, Muhammad,” said Marge, our household administrator, picking up a huge stack of envelopes. “I’ll get these to the post office today.”

  My father always read his own fan mail. Letters from children touched him most. Especially after losing his championship title. Dad feared that people—the world as a whole—might forget him. As if that could ever happen.

  Like many before him, the reporter sitting with my father that day wondered why a forty-three-year-old retired boxer was still among the most recognized superstars on the planet. He wondered why my father was approached with an attitude of awe. “When he travels to other countries, he is besieged: by Chinese in Hong Kong, by Japanese in Tokyo, by children too young to remember the Greatest’s great moments in the ring,” the reporter wrote.

  Later that evening, my father sat down at his desk and prepared a personal message for the National Enquirer. He hoped to defuse the rumor of his failing health.

  “The world is seeing the old Muhammad Ali again, and with God’s help I’ll be around for a long, long time! My doctors tell me I’ve knocked my medical problems out of the ring, and I can do anything I want with no holds barred.

  “I’m busier now than when I was fighting. I just got back from the Middle East and Africa. For three weeks, I was the guest of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia at his palace.

  “I also attended an Islamic conference. Then I was a guest of the Nigerian government for ten days.

  “I feel absolutely great and I’m preparing for the greatest battle of my life—the battle for peace. I intend to devote the rest of my life to bringing the peoples of the world together. Boxing can never compare to something like that.”

  * * *

  After my father married Lo
nnie in 1986, his health slowly began to decline, but he continued to show the world that he was still the playful, fun-loving man they’d fallen in love with. He just moved a little slower and spoke less often. It wasn’t easy for him; there were challenges, especially in the beginning stages, before he had come to terms with it, when he seemed to be in denial. In an old interview, he was holding out his hands, showing the reporter how still they were. “People with Parkinson’s shake,” he said. “Look, I’m not shaking . . .” He refused to be held prisoner by ghosts of the past and faced his new challenges as he always did, with the faith, grace, and dignity that marked his life.

  My father never liked taking his medicine. He used to hide his pills in plants or flush them down the toilet. “If I keep taking them, eventually they’ll stop working.” Then there were the little experiments he used to do. “I want to see how I feel if I don’t take them for a while.” Sometimes he was fine—better, even. But he always asked Lonnie for his meds after a few days.

  When he made appearances, he would smile graciously but wouldn’t speak. He didn’t like it when people had a hard time understanding what he was trying to say. One day, when I was a teenager, we were at the Los Angeles Marathon. The founder and president Bill Burke was a friend of my father’s and invited Dad and Lonnie every year. We were sitting at our table in a VIP tent. A longtime admirer of my father walked over and told him how happy he was to meet him. Dad shook the man’s hand and smiled, as he always did, but said nothing. He was probably hoping the man would be satisfied and walk away, so he didn’t have to speak. But the man stayed right where he was and tried to spark a conversation. Dad just nodded and smiled. The man turned to me and asked, “Can he talk?”