If I had to choose between my wife and my putter... well, I’d miss her.
Determined to win, the overcoming spirit of Jean Driscoll
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with Janet and Geoff Benge, Colorado, Waterbrook Press, 2000
Jean Driscoll is a legend in wheelchair racing - winner of gold medals at four successive Paralympics (1988-2000) plus eight Boston marathons. The book is an honest account of her struggles and triumphs: “I would have given anything to be ‘normal’ and have the other children like me”.
She describes vividly the moment she was told her legs would not recover and that she would need to use crutches or a wheelchair to get around for the rest of her life. “When I heard those words, everything inside of me stopped. I went numb from the inside out. The promise of walking better had sustained me through five rounds of surgery and eleven long, lonely months of recovery. But now, instead of being cured, I was worse off than before… The injustice of it all overwhelmed me. .. I had given up even trying to comprehend the humiliation and pain my body caused me. It had become my enemy, the thing I hated most”.
When her parents divorced she was anxious about whether her special needs and demands had caused the break-up of the family. Bitterly she blamed God for picking on her.
Two things were life-changing: discovering wheelchair sports and encountering a God who loved her unconditionally. She sums up her new relationship with God: “It’s hard to explain to people, but for the first time in my life I felt as though all the pieces fitted together”.
The book ends with a totally different Jean, reconciled to life: “my disability is a characteristic, like having blond hair or being nearsighted. It’s not a defining principle. For example, a person who is nearsighted puts on glasses or contacts in the morning and then goes about his or her regular daily activities. My disability happens to require that I climb into a wheelchair. But once I’m in it, I go about my day hardly ever thinking about my wheelchair”.
An amazing story of an inspirational person.