I just read a powerful story online. If you have about ten minutes to read this, I strongly urge you to do so. What a beautiful world it would be if all of us did something to make a difference in some way for some one!!
'Carry On': Why I stayed
"Why did you stay?"
He asked me, unprompted, as we waited quietly for the light to turn green. My heart revved. I always thought he knew.
"I love you," I answered.
"That's what I thought you'd say," he replied. "But … why … why did you stick around and do everything you did?"
The
answer to Dartanyon Crockett's second question was not as tidy as the
first. Because life can be a knotted mess, and, sometimes, love is not
enough.
Dartanyon and Leroy Sutton grubbed their way into my
heart four years ago. As an ESPN television features producer at the
time, I was always on the hunt for unique athlete pieces. For 10 years, I
traveled the country, chronicling human-interest stories against the
backdrop of sports. I covered Derek Jeter and Michael Jordan all the way
down to disabled amateurs and terminally ill little leaguers who
imprinted a special brand of heroics onto this world. What a privilege
to be invited into their private pains and sacred celebrations.
But
what I found on the wrestling mats at Cleveland's Lincoln-West High
School in 2009 caused my spirit to sink and soar, all in the same
moment.
Dartanyon was Lincoln's best and strongest talent. He was
5-foot-7 with muscles bunched like buckeyes and a winner in multiple
weight classes. He was also homeless, subsisting on the soggy mozzarella
sticks and badly bruised apples served in cafeteria lunches. His mama
died of an aneurysm when he was 8 years young, at which point family
collected him and took him to live in an East Cleveland crack house.
Where exactly it was Dartanyon could not say because Dartanyon is
legally blind. Born with Leber's disease, a condition that causes acute
vision loss, he can barely make out the facial features of a person
sitting a few feet away.
Perched atop Dartanyon's back -- yes,
riding on his back -- was teammate Leroy Sutton. He traveled around up
there because he had no legs, and the school had no elevator. And
because when he was 11 years young, he was hit by a train. Yes, a
freight train. Though the paramedics saved his life, they could not save
his entire body. His left leg was amputated below the knee, his right
leg below the hip. His mother, ravaged by guilt, soon slipped into drug
use and disappeared for stretches of time, leaving Leroy alone to care
for his younger sister. His father spent nearly all of Leroy's youth in
jail. The "why" questions haunted Leroy, but he learned to mask their
torment with a quick smile.
The one with no legs, being carried by the one who could not see. At first, I stayed because I simply could not look away.
In
addition to being intense practice partners, Dartanyon and Leroy shared
a handful of classes, always sitting side by side. Dartanyon would get
up to sharpen Leroy's pencils; Leroy ensured Dartanyon could read small
print. Yet each time I allowed myself to revel in their tenderness, they
reverted to teenage humor with a twist that only they could share.
"Did you guys do the homework?" the teacher asked.
"Dartanyon tried," Leroy said, "but he couldn't see it."
"So Leroy ran over," Dartanyon said, "and read it to me."
Afterward,
they barreled down the halls together, their echoing laughter the
brightest light in that dreary place. Dartanyon kept a hand on Leroy's
wheelchair, in part as a guide for himself but also as a protector, a
brother, for Leroy. Their teachers remarked to me that they were "some
of the good ones."
Their cheerfulness stood out in a school
marked by irreverent students and sunken teachers. Seas of black and
Latino teens poured through the metal detectors each morning, many
stopped for patdowns. One boy wearing no coat on a blistery March
morning was turned away, the security guard informing him that he had
been expelled the week prior. There was an arrest in the hallway after
10th period. Books were handed out and locked back up after each class.
Less than 40 percent would ever graduate; untold numbers were left
pregnant. Yet Dartanyon and Leroy moved throughout the chaos with grace,
with a refusal to have their hope tainted. "Destined for Greatness,"
Dartanyon scribbled on his pages throughout the day. They seemed
oblivious to the damning limitations on their lives.
Producing
the 2009 story, "Carry On," challenged me in ways I previously had not
experienced. Instead of telling the story of an individual
accomplishment or remarkable moment, this conveyed a friendship. And in
order for the nuances of a friendship to unfold naturally on camera, I
needed to become a part of it. Calling out "Be funny on the count of
three," or "Now convey warmth on this take," is artificial. This story
required me to be in on the jokes and move fluidly with the characters.
I
found this difficult at first, because I grew up on the other side of
Cleveland. The white side. Though I was raised just eight miles west of
Lincoln, my parents scrounged up the money for private school to protect
me from the public schools and "those people." Through all of their
summer yard sales and side jobs, I silently wondered what was so bad
about the people "over there" to prompt their determination. Now I
realized their internal discomfort was probably akin to the visible
uneasiness I wore standing in Lincoln's halls. Small, shy, blond and
studious, I would not have survived a week.
But Dartanyon and
Leroy eased me in graciously. As we filmed over the course of five
months, I tagged along to their classes, their practices and on team bus
rides. They taught me their lingo and poked fun when I tried to use it.
They opened up about their struggles -- Dartanyon with great eagerness,
as I think he had waited his entire life for someone to want to know
him, to truly see him. Leroy's revelations emerged more reluctantly. He
had been emotionally abandoned too many times before. But sharing his
past began a type of therapy for him. Both began to believe that,
perhaps, I genuinely cared.
I stayed because I would not be next on the list of people who walked out and over their trust.
After
the wrestling season, Dartanyon and Leroy competed in power lifting.
Leroy held the Ohio state record in bench press, Dartanyon in dead lift.
Immediately following his conference power lifting championship win in
April of 2009, Dartanyon discovered that all of his belongings had been
taken from the bleachers. Stolen along with them was his right to
celebrate. Every victory in his life was ripped from him before he could
even taste it.
That week, I drove Dartanyon around town to
replace his lost items. A new bus pass. Another cell phone. A trip to
the social security office for a state ID, which required a birth
certificate, which had been confiscated during his dad's last eviction.
His was a cruel world, even for a sighted person. How he endured it in
shadows baffled me. I paid for all of his items, arguably crossing a
journalistic line. But this was quickly becoming less about a story and
all about soothing the suffering. Dartanyon later told me it was during
that week of errands that he grew convinced God placed me into his life
for reasons beyond television, that no one else would have taken the
time and money to help him in those ways.
Soon thereafter, I
traveled to Akron to film Leroy's childhood neighborhood. This required a
police escort. "Welcome to Laird Street," the officer said smugly. "We
call it 'Laird Country,' because once they're born onto Laird, they
never leave. They just move from house to house, up and down, following
those drugs." Shadowy men loomed on the dilapidated porches of each
home, while the streets were filled with children who should have been
in school. "Your guy must have been real lucky to get out," the officer
remarked.
I stayed because my heart was too heavy for my legs to
walk away. Dark clouds hung over every turn of Dartanyon's and Leroy's
lives, and I found myself pleading with the heavens to end this madness.
That
summer, I feverishly edited "Carry On," praying that just one viewer
would be moved to help these boys in meaningful ways. But instead,
following its August airings, hundreds emerged! Emails from Africa to
England, from Idaho to Ipswich flooded my inbox, every viewer offering
money and sharing personal accounts of how this extraordinary friendship
shook their souls awake. Dartanyon and Leroy were no longer invisible.
Their plights mattered to a world inspired. I curled up on my kitchen
floor and wept.
In the month that followed, I personally
responded to nearly 1,000 emails, not wanting to miss out on a blessing.
Round the clock I harnessed donations, vetted speaking invitations,
deciphered financial aid forms, coordinated college visits and ensured
Dartanyon and Leroy were finally fed on a daily basis. Each time I
shared exciting new developments with them, Dartanyon gushed with thank
yous and hugs, broad grins and relieved exhales. But Leroy's stoic
posture never budged. "Leroy, if at any point you don't want this, you
need to speak up," I said. "The last thing I want is to inflict my
desires on you."
"No, it's all good," he said.
"But
usually, when it's 'all good,' people smile or say something," I said.
"Each time I call you with good news, you are so quiet. I'm not even
sure you're on the line."
"No one's ever called me with good news before," he said. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say."
He
once told me that Christmas was his least favorite holiday because his
mom wrapped up Bazooka bubble gum and toys from around the house, hoping
he wouldn't notice. Having never known pleasure, he had not developed
the language to respond to it. "But I am happy inside," he added. "My
dreams might come true."
I stayed because I vowed right then to fill Leroy's life with a thousand good things until he simply burst with joy.
In
November 2009, thanks to the generosity of ESPN viewers, Leroy moved to
Arizona to study video game design at Collins College. I had my doubts
that he could manage on his own, but time and again, he disarms his
skeptics. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school,
and, this August, he will be the first to receive a college diploma.
Dartanyon and I will be in the front row, listening as the sound of this
cycle of poverty shatters.
Dartanyon received his life-changing
offer from the United States Olympic Committee in March 2010.
Recognizing his natural athletic abilities, coaches invited him to live
at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to learn the
Paralympic sport of judo. This was akin to a winning lottery ticket --
shelter, sport, mentors, school, medical care and, as he proudly showed
me on a visit to Colorado, his first bed.
"Top judo athletes
begin training at a very young age," his coach confided. "We don't know
that Dartanyon can make up the years by the 2016 Games." But a little
doubt was all Dartanyon needed to work his fingers into calluses and his
heart into that of a champion. In a blur, he swiped a spot on the 2012
Paralympic team to London. Leroy and I crossed the pond and celebrated
in the front row as the bronze medal was draped around Dartanyon's neck.
Once forgotten by the world, Dartanyon stood on top of it.
"Things
like this don't happen to kids like us," he cried on that unimaginable
night, his face beaming bronze, his tears soaking into my shoulder.
And
he is right. Blind and legless kids from the ghettos don't get college
educations and shiny accolades, but they should. And that is why I
stayed. Because hope and love and rejoicing and redemption can happen to
kids like them. And people like me, people from the "other side," who
can soften life's blows for them, ought to help.
Those who know
the story behind this story heap a lot of credit onto me for dedicating
my last four years to improving Dartanyon's and Leroy's lives. Indeed, I
have spent thousands of hours removing obstacles from the paths of
their dreams, providing for their needs, reprogramming poorly learned
habits, exposing new horizons and piling on the encouragement they need
to rise above. I drove Dartanyon to the dentist to drill the first of 15
cavities. I taught Leroy how to pay a bill. I sat with Dartanyon at the
social security office to apply for disability benefits, something he
could have received all his life had anyone submitted the forms for him.
I soothed the burn of Leroy's broken heart and phantom limbs. And
through it all, we grew into an eclectic family of our own. We carried
on.
When he made a visit to the eye doctor in 2009, I asked
Dartanyon to include me on the consent form so I could access his
records if need be. Later that day, I received a call from the office
administrator. "I just thought you should know what Dartanyon wrote on
his consent form today," she said, somewhat undone. "Next to your name,
on the release, is a space that says 'Relationship to Patient.'
Dartanyon wrote 'Guardian Angel.'"
I stayed because we only get one life, and we don't truly live it until we give it away.
I stayed because we can change the world only when we enter into another's world.
I stayed because I love you.
Lisa currently resides in the Boston area and can be reached at Lisa.M.Fenn@hotmail.com.
Do you have a story similar to this? Please share in the comments section if so! Let's pay it forward somehow!
Taken from:
http://m.espn.go.com/general/story?storyId=9454322&src=desktop&wjb
