7/15/2019 1 Comment July 15th, 2019Stronger, higher, faster is the Olympic motto. I learned this recently at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. There are so many extraordinary lessons for life within the Olympic movement and I highly recommend a visit to this tribute to human excellence in sport and in life if the chance ever presents itself. But as I walked the halls of the museum reading about all the Olympic greats like Jesse Owens and Michael Phelps, it was the photo of Terezinha Guilhermina that stopped me in my tracks and brought tears to my eyes. Not tears of pity, no, nothing even close. Tears of total awe. Her photo, shown above with her guide during the London Paralympics in 2012, was in a montage of many incredible athletes with disabilities. When I looked up her story I was speechless. Terezinha was born into poverty in Brazil. One of 12, she had a degenerative eye disease that made a life wrought with challenges almost unbearable. Tragically, she lost her mom when she was 9 and was left to fight for food however possible. She was bullied relentlessly for being different but found she could outrun her tormentors which began her love of running and running very, very fast. She believed very early that she could climb her way out of hardship if she became the best in the world. Her goals were set. Nothing was stopping her.
How was she not broken by just one of the challenges thrown at her? Poverty, hunger, loss of her sight, grief over losing her mother, the pain of being alienated and physically abused by her peers - any one of which could understandably cause one to disappear inside oneself. Yet she says, "I understand that a lot of people that don't have anything can make it. And I have never accepted how little I had." May Terezinha's story be a great reminder that we have so much strength inside of us to soar. Read more of her inspirational story here: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/20/sport/brazil-terezinha-guilhermina-paralympics/index.html.
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aboutWelcome to my blog Photos + Footnotes. I am Tyler Cunningham and I love taking pictures. It is the best way I know how to express myself and my view of the world. It's when I'm behind the camera that I'm most comfortable. I see colors and details, I observe connections between people. I see joy and pain, abundance and poverty. I am my least judgmental behind the lens, simply seeing and recording. It is how I process the abundance of information the world throws at me. ArchivesCategories |
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