Day 62, Jaco, Costa Rica
As he often will, Paul takes long hikes into mountains, forests, beaches, whatever nature is available. I’m quite certain it’s in no way related to living with four strong-willed, sometimes opinionated, feisty women. At any given slice in time the youngest may be gymnastically flailing about the room, the middle is trying to convince him to buy her a pet fox, the oldest wants to rescue a horse with a rare blood disorder, and I’m his wife trying to convince him to go to a frog sanctuary. Why would he want to escape this lovely mosaic of family interaction? Yet escape he does.
While I was momentarily tempted to accept his invitation to climb to the top of the mountain, I knew if I went along he may never reach the summit.
A few hours into his trek, a fierce thunderstorm swept over the mountains. Lots of lightening, rain, and the sky boomed. When he walked through the door covered in mud, you’ve never seen such a happy animated guy.
Something you have to understand about Paul. No matter where he goes, he always comes home with a crazy story. So when he starts with, “You’ll never who I met at the top of the mountain.” We throw about a few options, The Pope, Dalai Lama, Moses. He said no religious ties, but we were tired of guessing.
Then he says, a wheelchair surf champion. Good thing we didn’t keep guessing. The unique part of this story, of course, is that it’s the top of a mountain. But once you get to know this man, it isn’t so strange to find him in that interesting location.
The surfer told his story. Before the accident he was a professional surfer, travelled the world. He also said he was an angry young man. One day he was on his motorcycle in a long line of cars stuck behind a bus going up a curvy mountain road. That’s all he remembers. The bus driver and other witnesses told him the rest of the story. He passed the entire line of cars, but didn’t quite make it past the bus before another bus coming the other way bore down. He ended up under the bus to his right, and by the time the bus stopped the back sets of wheels were directly on top of his legs, and they had to put it in reverse to ease off of him. Needless to say it was a miracle he wasn’t killed…he was in a coma for a while after that, and lost the use of his horribly crushed legs.
Determined to continue in a sport he loves, he now surfs in a different league. He is world class as an adaptive surfer, basically riding the board on his knees, and recently represented Costa Rica at the World Championships in California. He and his lifelong friend were at the top of the mountain doing a little soul searching. He was feeling a bit stuck in life and wondered what he should do next.
Paul told him that he was a remarkable person with an inspirational story, and should do a TED talk. He could inspire many people and who knows what doors would open for him after that. He had never heard of these talks and was so grateful at the suggestion.
He said that they saw Paul climbing up the mountain from a distance, which was unusual since people rarely climb this mountain. Then they saw the storm approaching and wondered why Paul hadn’t turned back but kept climbing up the hill. Now that he met Paul and was inspired to tell his story, he said Paul was like an angel sent to give him this message.
Everyone was inspired in their own way on the summit of that Costa Rican mountain.
They friended each other on fb and are now keeping in touch. I regularly listen to TED talks, and hope that one day I’ll see his. And next time Paul asks me to go on a mountain hike, I should probably say yes.
