I love a good Olympics story. Maybe it's because I'm so out of shape myself. This tale, though, about a weight-lifter mom with an autistic son, has enough in it to appeal to everybody.
When you think of an Olympic weight lifter, you picture an enormous human specimen, someone who looks like they eat Buicks for breakfast. But Melanie Roach defies expectations – she's 5 feet, 1 inch, and can lift 238 pounds. She weighs in at 117. So yes, that's a little more than twice her total weight.
Roach started out as a gymnast, then switched to weight-lifting 10 years ago. Injuries sidelined her Olympic dreams. Since then, she has had three children, one of whom was diagnosed with autism in 2005. When Roach found out, she became depressed, and went to visit her bishop (she's Mormon). She said, "This is not what I signed up for," to which the bishop replied, " This is exactly what you signed up for." (This, incidentally, is also exactly what Rachael said in this post.)
You know how sometimes the right person saying the right thing at the right time can turn your life around? Well, that's what happened to Melanie. Her attitude towards her son changed. Instead of feeling like she had "lost a child," she did what she could to cope with the situation, getting him therapy, removing gluten from his diet (which seems to make him feel calmer), and altering family routines as needed to help him in whatever way they can. Roach's mother-in-law, Pam, said, "You can’t surmount autism. You can learn to live with it."
Melanie also found the strength, literally and emotionally, to get back to weight lifting. And it paid off. She just earned a spot on the 2008 Olympic team.
The story is worth reading, and watch the video, which features Roach interacting with her children. Somebody should turn this into a movie.
images: NYTimes.com, Seattle Times
