It's a very beautiful story, too much to be able to write and read without being moved, really. I decided to give it to you because it made an effect on me that at my age is rare: I cried.
Yes, I admit it: I am someone who is still moved by a film. However, crying with hot tears is not so normal.
There are two cases: either I am overly tender, but I don't believe that much, or the story is extraordinarily moving. Maybe both.
Conner and Cayden are two American boys, two-way brothers of the word. Brothers because they are children of the same parents, therefore for reasons of blood, but also brothers in the most human sense of the term.
The love that binds these two boys is an example for all humanity.
Conner, one fine day, learns that a Triathlon race is being organized in his county for young athletes: swimming, cycling, running. Being of a sporting nature, he decides that he wants to do it, at all costs. Oh yes, Conner is a stubborn boy.
«Mom, I want to do that race ... and I want to do it together with Cayden»
Mom Jenny has a start.
"Dear, but Cayden ..."
Cayden cannot certainly make that race, he is unable to walk, and he has not spoken since birth. He is ill, struck by an unjust and cruel disease. He can only smile, and he does it to show his feelings. Conner has understood this since they were little that his brother smiles happily, when he plays sports, and he is convinced that even his little brother likes doing it. This is enough for Conner, satisfies him, makes him happy. He wants his brother to smile at him, that's his purpose.
«Yes, love, all right ... but how can he do that, Cayden? Whispers the mother, happily moved but also disturbed by her son's request.
«I have thought of everything ... you just have to ask permission from the organizers. During the swim I will tie a small dinghy behind me on which there will be my brother, in the stretch on the bicycle I will pull his wheelchair and in the race I will push it. He will be ahead of me in cutting the final goal, who knows how he will have fun and how much joy he will feel. Easy ... don't you think? "
From that first time a race will be unleashed between the villagers to support Conner's initiative and allow him to realize his dream, which will travel all over America.
Now these two brothers have already participated in more than twenty Triathlon races, and are now famous. In the swimming section they use an inflatable boat, if the first part of the race takes place in the pool, or a special raft for the sea routes. The wheelchair has become a sort of rickshaw, technologically advanced to be able to hook it securely to the bicycle and to be able to push it easily during the race.
See Conner overcome an opponent, sometimes even adult and handsome, while pushing his brother towards the coveted arrival banner or watching Cayden's smile crossing the finish line is a scene of rare beauty. I, who am an old swimmer, when I saw the effort drawn on the face of this great little man, who almost sinks into the fatiguing gesture of towing the raft amid the malign waves of the sea, I could not help but cry, move me like a child and think that that is the real beauty, that effort painted on the face of a boy who really knows what love is and who draws from it a strength that no other gadget in the world could give him.
Some have argued that Conner is so prepared that, if he decides to abandon the heavy burden, he would certainly become a great champion of this, which is perhaps the hardest specialty of the entire sports world.
But I think differently ... he would certainly become a champion of the sport but would lose the primacy of champion of life, a rare example of great brotherly love. And, let's face it all, do we have so many champions in sport, some even emeritus assholes, and I also know them personally, but as many champions in life as we know?
Bravo Conner, keep it up, stay in your beautiful utopia of believing, and I believe it too, that together with you, Caydon also wins, and together with you we all win, maybe among the tears that were first of emotion and then, slowly, they will turn into tears of joy.
I look at the grimace of your face that suffers in the effort of the stroke, the eyes closed, the mouth that looks for air on the surface of the water, while your body sinks due to the heaviness of the tow, and I can only say: how beautiful you are, Conner, and how much I envy you my little big man, athlete in sport and champion in life.