Tomorrow is Father's Day... I hope that your dad is your hero. That's how it should be. I love this story of a very special father:
Dick Hoyt ran his 31st Boston Marathon this year thinking it would be his last.
But now the 72-year-old father, who has pushed his disabled son in a special wheelchair in 1,091 races, says he's planning to run the marathon again next year.
Hoyt's resolve to compete again sprang from the tragedy of the twin bombings at the race, which killed three people and injured more than 170.
Hoyt's 51-year-old son, Rick, has cerebral palsy and is unable to walk or talk and is quadriplegic, the result of oxygen deprivation at birth
At his birth, doctors were blunt. 'They said, 'Forget Rick, put him away, put him in an institution, he's going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life,' said Dick told the Today Show earlier this month.
'Today he's 51 years old and we still haven't figured out what kind of vegetable he is - and guess what? That vegetable has been turned into a bronze statue.'
The statue was unveiled outside Boston's Center Elementary School to honor Team Hoyts' racing record, which began in the mid 70s.
Never even thinking for a second to institutionalize their son, the Hoyts decided to raise him like his two brothers.
They took him camping, cross-country skiing and swimming at the beach and enrolled him into school - where he learned to spell words with his eyes - one at a time.
Using a computer device specially designed to allow him to communicate, Rich graduated from high school and from Boston University and now lives on his own with personal care attendants.
