I’m looking at three photos on my kitchen table of my daughter in athletic action. There she is, holding on to the side of the pool just before the start of a race, and another doing the freestyle/Australian crawl.
She did not have an extra print to give me of the medal ceremony that followed.
The third snapshot shows her with a bocce ball in hand, in laser-like concentration on the target.
Yes, bocce ball. Allison is a Special Olympics athlete.
Last fall she finished another season of Special Olympics bowling. For Christmas, her mother gave Allie her first custom-fit, nine-pound bowling ball. Purple, of course, her favorite color by a mile.
There was a time when I wouldn’t think of taking her bowling without using the bumpers that guard the gutters for kids. It would have been too demoralizing — not fun, as sports should be.
But that’s well in the past. Now she stands at the foul line swinging her bowling ball back and forth, back and forth, before sending it on its way. It’s not a bowling style to send the ball rocketing down the lane or creating mayhem at the other end, but Allie does get strikes and spares.
She usually comes away feeling that she’s done her best, and that’s enough for her.
Her one sporting specialty was always swimming. She was naturally as comfortable in water as a turtle.
I remember when she was a toddler and we were at Duck Lake in northern Wisconsin. We were standing in shallow water when a power boat’s wake snuck past my attention and knocked her over. She went under, sucked in a big whoosh of water and came up sputtering.
Little Allie then went on enjoying the lake as though nothing had happened.
I can’t possibly count the number of times she and I have leisurely swum out into deep water, watching the shoreline recede and reveling in the ecstasy of dwelling only in water, sky and sunshine. She transferred that comfort, that fearlessness, to swimming for Special Olympics.
More recently, bocce came along for her, and she became the ace of her Special Olympics team — until she unavoidably missed a couple of practices. Now she waits for next year. In Special Olympics, they apparently take these things seriously.
My daughter never competed in high-school sports, but through Special Olympics she’ll be able to compete on sports teams for her entire adult life if she wants to.
She enjoys people and the collegiality of being involved in this type of athletics. She’s also incredibly accepting of her limitations.
After all, each one of us can only do what we’re capable of doing. Allison is doing that.
And I’m the proud dad, cheering her on.
• Daddy Talk is an online parenting blog written by Racine, Wis. Journal Times reporter Michael “Mick” Burke. Find it online at www.journaltimes.com/mom.
