XXX

On Saturday morning I went to the Paralympic Athletics .It was amazing .The whole thing – the stadium-the atmosphere-the competitors-the picnic-the walk round the park afterwards. We were there from 10-1.30 , in great seats just up from the finish line .Luckily ,my friend had an app on her phone which told us what all the codes were T43 ,T 48 etc , so we knew the disability of the athletes .We saw loads of 100m women’s heats. Some of these women had no sight and ran with a guide .We learnt the guide was not to cross the line first , so that made for more tension .We saw Richard Whitehead win the 200m final for GB . He is a double leg amputee ,who runs on 2 blades .We saw shot-put and long jump too .Flags go up, flags go down ,anthems are played .One poor guy ,Houssein Omar Hassan , a 35year old runner from Djibouti hobbled the 1500 metres in over 11 minutes which is about seven and a half minutes after the other runners.The roar as he completed the race was deafening. Almost everyone in the 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium was on their feet cheering their man home. These were not cheers for a winner but simply for the act of taking part. Rather than give up, and having been well and truly lapped, Omar Hassan, his country’s only participant in the Paralympics, was determined to complete the race. I started to cry and just couldn’t stop. In my tears everything came out ….my sadness ,my longing for Rosie , Jane’s disability and the last painful years of her life , poor Grandma and how it was so unfair she lost her sight ,her hearing and her mobility, my worries for my family , the tears just flowed and flowed .I tried to hide them at first , but then i just gave up.

2 Replies to “XXX”

  1. Your pain must be unbearable ‘It’s not fair’ just doesn’t seem to even touch it . Thinking about you with much love xxx

  2. <3 <3<3 from meBeing in amongst that atmosphere would, I imagine, be overwhelming – even to those of us who haven’t experienced such losses as yours Rachel. Tears and more tears seem a highly appropriate answer. xxx

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