Grace, Gold, and Glory Page 4
The more competitions I won, the more I heard a particular sentence pop up over and over: “You’re the next Dominique Dawes.” I was like, “Who’s that?” One evening, Mom said, “Google it.” I did — and what I saw sent my lower jaw straight to my bedroom floor. Dominique was the powerhouse gymnast who rocked women’s artistic gymnastics at the Olympics in 1992 (Barcelona), 1996 (Atlanta), and 2000 (Sydney). At the 1996 games, when the Magnificent Seven seized gold, Dominique was the only gymnast who had all eight of her scores count toward the team’s total. When I pulled up Dominique’s competition videos on YouTube, I witnessed firsthand just how much of a gifted and intense competitor she was: Her tumbling passes on the floor exercise often included ten (amazing!) skills in a row — from one corner of the spring mat to the next, and then all the way back again. And did I mention that she also tumbled her way into the history books? Dominique is the first black woman of any nationality to win an Olympic gold medal in women’s artistic gymnastics. Amazing!
I was so inspired by Dominique’s performance that it made me even more resolute in my campaign. I had to get my coaches to teach me bigger skills. “Please, Mom!” I pleaded. Little by little, Mom began to see my big point: If I was already winning so many competitions, why shouldn’t my coaches be willing to take me to the next level as soon as I was ready to go there? At last, Mom scheduled another conversation — this time with Alex, a coach who’d once overseen the Romanian national team.
Meanwhile, another gigantic test rolled around: I had to get ready for a state competition, which takes place every spring at the end of the competitive season. In gymnastics, you can’t just roll up at a state championship if you are a Level 4 gymnast; you have to first earn a qualifying score at what’s called a sectional meet. I earned that score, and that meant I had the chance to battle it out for gold alongside the other gymnasts in my age group.
“Is this too much?” Coach Dana asked as she held a can of glitter hairspray above my ponytail and helped me get dressed. “A little more!” I answered. In the full-length mirror, I admired my long-sleeved leo, which was blue, black, and dotted with rhinestones — not bad! And I just loved the way the metallic-blue glitter stood out against my dark hair, which was pulled up in its usual scrunchie. You could call this one of my first baby steps from tomboy to girlie girl — realizing that glitter is pretty cool. “Are you nervous?” Dana asked. I was. At eight, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a state champion, but I knew a big prize was on the line, and I wanted to win. And, of course, I still had the same questions that every other person alive has when they’re facing something big: Will I do a good enough job? Will my hard work show? And what if I slip, mess up, or fall flat on my butt?
On one May afternoon, I got my answer — and I didn’t once hit the floor, except to nail my landings! I accomplished what might’ve looked impossible for a four-pound, coughing, vomiting, wheezing child who’d once been diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease: I won the Level 4 all-around gymnastics competition and became the Virginia State Champion.
Arielle spotted a big box in front of her bedroom door one afternoon when she arrived home from school. Scratch, scratch came a noise from inside the box. Arielle slowly lifted the sides of the container and peeked inside. What could it be? As it turns out, it was something she’d been begging Mom to get us for weeks: a baby rabbit. “Thank you, Mom!” Arielle squealed when our mother walked through our front door that evening. “He’s sooo cute!” He had the darkest coat of spotless fur I’d ever seen. That’s why Arielle named him Midnight.
Midnight hopped into our lives at exactly the right moment — mostly because he provided a break from stress in the form of comic relief. “Get down from there, Midnight!” — that was the sentence heard constantly around our home. Every time we’d let him out of his cage, he’d look around, pop his ears straight up into the air, and … leeaaaaaaap! In fact, Midnight leapt his way through every corner of our three-bedroom town house. We’d often find him hiding out under the bunk beds in my room or sniffing around for scraps of food that might make for a snack. “Come here, Midnight!” I’d hold on to our pet rabbit and run my tiny finger through his thick fur. But almost every time I pulled him close, he wiggled right out of my arms — and straight back down to the floor so he could begin his next adventure. Even when he wasn’t quite in my view because he was hiding behind the shower curtain, Midnight was one of the bright spots of my time away from the gym — or maybe I should say dark spot.
Some Sundays, in place of going to church, Mom gathered us all around for Bible study. We took turns reading passages from Mom’s old, brown-leather copy of the Amplified Bible. I had my favorites, starting with a brave man named Daniel. Back in Babylonian times, Daniel, a praying man, was given a top gig because he was such a hard worker. Some of his co-workers didn’t like this very much, so they got together and plotted out how they could take him down. Their plan? Getting King Darius to pass a law that would send anyone caught praying to God straight to the lion’s den. None of this stopped Daniel from praying — and soon after, he was indeed thrown into a ferocious den of hungry, spitting, growling lions. Early the next morning, the king, who’d realized he’d been tricked into signing that law by Daniel’s colleagues, swung by to check on Daniel. And here’s how the story picks up in Daniel 6:20 – 23 (NKJV):
“Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?”
Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”
Now can you see why I love Daniel? He wasn’t afraid to stand his ground, even when he was dragged to the front door of a dingy den — or when he faced a whole slew of powerful lions. And that’s because he knew that he had a power greater than any other in the world — the power of God’s protection. “God didn’t leave or fail Daniel, and He will never leave or fail you,” Mom told us after she’d shut the Bible. “And because He’s in your heart too, He will never fail you.”
Another Big D has always topped my list of biblical faves: David, the sheep herder turned Israeli warrior. The Philistines and Israelites camped out for battle on two sides of a valley. And every day, the Philistines talked some serious trash: They sent over Goliath, a nine-foot-plus giant, to challenge the Israelites to step up and fight. Goliath did this twice a day for forty days straight. One day, David, then just a teen, was sent by his father to the front battle lines to find out how his brothers were surviving. When David got there, he heard Goliath dishing out his usual round of jeers. That’s when skinny David did the unthinkable: He volunteered to fight the beefy Goliath. King Saul, who was understandably reluctant at first, finally agreed to let David try. Without even a stitch of armor, David gathered up five stones from a brook and placed them into his shepherd’s pouch. “Then David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied”(1 Samuel 17:45, NKJV). That’s when David took one last look at the burly hulk, removed a pebble from his pouch, placed it in a slingshot, pointed it straight at Goliath’s forehead, and — pop! — took him down. Talk about guts.
After David slayed that giant, he didn’t exactly live a squeaky-clean life — he did some downright rotten things, like steal another man’s wife. That’s why it’s worth pointing out that God still called David a man after His own heart (Acts 13:22). “You mean we don’t have to be perfect to please God?” I once asked Mom. “None of us is perfect,” Mom answered. “That’s why we need grace. No matter what we’ve done, He can always use us.” Got it.
Mom sat across from Alex, the Romanian coach who’d joined Gymstrada’s staff earlier that season. “My daughter is ready for the next level,” Mom told him as Round Two of her crusade. “She
needs more difficult skills.” Alex knew Mom was right, but he also knew he shouldn’t contradict what the gym’s owner had already told Mom. “Look, I can’t really tell you what to do,” Alex finally said. “But I will tell you this: You’ve got to do your own homework. You’ve got to take your daughter’s career into your own hands from this point on.”
As comfortable as it is to hold on to what’s familiar, we sometimes have to move on in order to move up. I knew it. Mom knew it. Alex knew it. And in June 2004, after I’d become Virginia State Champion, I finally ended my time at Gymstrada and began training down the street at Excalibur Gymnastics. What came next began a bold new chapter for me — one filled with some of the biggest challenges of my gymnastics training.
Around the same time, a few weeks after we got our pet rabbit, Midnight, Mom mistakenly fed him some strawberry-flavored oatmeal — don’t be made at her, ‘cause it was truly an accident! Arielle came home to find Midnight’s furry body lying paws-up in his cage. The following Sunday, we all moped around the house in our PJs, saddened by the loss of our beloved bunny — and no one was more upset than our mother. A few weeks later, our grief was replaced by a second surprise: Mom brought home another rabbit, Midnight’s brother. Okay, so he wasn’t nearly as charming as Midnight — that’s how he ended up with the name Shadow! — but he stilled filled the empty space in Midnight’s cage. And on our living room sofa. And in our hearts.
Beginnings and endings, endings and beginnings — that’s just the way life goes. And whether or not we like what happens after we’ve taken a courageous step forward, we can always count on one thing: The next experience will forever change us. Just ask David.
Chapter Six
It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
—HELEN KELLER, DEAF-BLIND ACTIVIST
JUST ABOUT EVERY OLYMPIC ATHLETE CAN TELL YOU EXACTLY WHEN HE or she caught the fervor — that intense desire to compete in the Olympics. Michael Phelps felt the fire when he watched Tom Dolan swim for gold in the 1996 Atlanta games. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt got his shot of lightning at age twelve, when his high school PE teacher, Lorna Thorpe, noticed his raw talent and pushed him to pursue track and field. My big dose of inspiration came on August 19, 2004 — the Thursday evening when gymnast Carly Patterson showed up on my family’s television screen.
“Look, Mom,” I shrieked, scurrying from the sofa and onto my tiptoes. “Carly’s doing giants!” The giant is a skill that involves swinging around and around the uneven bars — and it was the very skill I was learning on the bars that season. As my entire family sat huddled around our TV, I kept tapping my mother. “Guess what, Mom — I’m doing that!” After I’d cut in about seven more times, my mother went, “Okay, Gabrielle. Just watch the Olympics!”
In the days leading up to that evening, sports commentators everywhere had repeated a single question: Will Carly Patterson become the next Mary Lou Retton? As thousands gathered in the Olympic Sports Complex Indoor Hall in Athens, Greece — and millions more around the world tuned in — that question would be answered at the women’s all-around finals.
The stakes were beyond high. Carly, who came to the Olympics with a World Champion team title, faced off against three-time World all-around champion Svetlana Khorkina of Russia. On vault, Carly attempted a double-twisting Yurchenko that earned her a score of 9.375 — a bit of a shaky start. During the next two rotations, Svetlana took the lead. But Carly rebounded with strong performances on the uneven bars (9.575) and the balance beam (9.725 — thanks to an Arabian double front dismount that she punctuated with a perfect landing). The moment that Carly placed her ankles just inside the boundaries of the spring mat as the last gymnast to compete in floor exercise, she knew the minimum score she needed in order to go home with a gold — a 9.536.
Carly saluted the judges. She then shook her hips to the initial notes of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s upbeat song “Mr. Pinstripe Suit” and leapt into her first tumbling pass. I could visualize Americans everywhere sucking in a collective breath as she powerfully hurled her body through the air … and … “She nailed it!” Mom yelled. It all came down to the last of Carly’s four tumbling passes. After she thrust her five-foot frame into the air, flipped across the mat with her ponytail swinging, and landed on her feet, Carly’s huge smile afterward said it all — she knew she’d grabbed the gold.
Seconds later, Carly’s official score appeared on the board above—9.712, a number indeed high enough to nudge Svetlana into silver territory. That night, as Carly had that gold medal placed around her neck, she didn’t become the next Mary Lou — she became the first Carly Patterson. She also became the gymnast who widened my vision for what I could accomplish in my sport, just as Dominique Dawes had done. I suddenly had my sights set on a single goal: I wanted to stand on top of that podium. That night, I made a choice — I would work harder than ever at the new gym I’d joined just two months before.
We were late — and I absolutely hate to be late. It makes me so crabby. I could feel my heart rate quicken as Mom weaved through traffic at eight in the morning to get us to Excalibur Gymnastics for my first day of training. What impression would we make by being late on the first day? I thought. My friend Kaiya, who was making the switch to the new gym with me, sat next to me in the backseat. When we finally pulled into the parking lot at 8:03, I sighed and glanced over at Kaiya. I guess three minutes late wasn’t so bad.
Excalibur seemed so much larger than my old gym. On one side of the gym stood an oversized mirror, and its reflection made the room seem far more spacious than it probably was. Sunlight poured through three enormous windows and made the room glow. It was so bright in there! I looked up to notice dozens of flags from all over the world — places like Argentina, Chile, China, and Japan. And of course, I spotted lots of apparatuses spread around the gym: beams, trampolines, uneven bars standing over a foamy, squishy pit, and a brand-new bouncy floor. A group of about twenty girls — all at different skill levels and ages — lined up so that Kaiya and I could greet them. Each girl said her name as we worked our way down the line — but by the end, I couldn’t remember a single one.
“Walking handstands, everyone!” Jim Walker, one of the coaches at Excalibur, called out after we’d divided up in our levels. Kaiya lowered her palms to the floor. A moment later, I did the same. Over the next ten seconds, we walked as far as we could on our hands, trying so hard not to fall — because falling meant we had to start over. Once we completed that exercise (no falls, thank you!), we moved on to the uneven bars. I mounted the bars, attempted a move called a free hip — then came crashing to the floor. “Are you okay?” asked Jim, who rushed to my side. “Yeah, I’m good,” I said with a giggle — the same giggle I used to let out as a toddler when I’d crash on our living room. “Oh, man — you’re a tough one!” Jim said.
During my first days at Excalibur in June 2004, I was already on a mission: I wanted to learn as many new skills as I could before the TOPs testing in July. Yes, I’d been winning championships, but because TOPs requires such a high level of difficulty, the skills I’d already mastered simply weren’t impressive enough to help me make the TOPs A team. A perfect example of that? Gustavo, who was one of my coaches — along with his wife, Marina — asked my group to do ten press handstands on the beam. I could only do about three correctly. “Keep trying,” the coach said. My heart sank as I watched all the other gymnasts move on to the other rotations — and I had to stay on the beam because I was struggling so much with my skill. I knew I had to get better.
Let me tell you how determined I was: I must’ve practiced that handstand one hundred times over the next two days. And by the third day, I did what even my coach found unfathomable: I knocked out ten perfect press handstands. Was I going to be left behind? Not a chance. My mother’s a fighter. My siblings are fighters. And during that first week at Excalibur, I proved to myself that I was also a fighter. I not only mastered my handstand, I also fought my way onto the TOPs A team. That meant th
at I would be at training camp alongside girls who’d already been competing at Levels 7 and 8 for months. Yikes.
I used to be Jewish. Well, not exactly Jewish — but my family practiced some of the Jewish traditions. For a reason that she still can’t explain, my mother has always felt drawn to Judaism — even when she was a child. Her mother felt the same unexplainable pulls; she sometimes prepared kosher meals. When she was just fourteen, Mom asked my grandmom, “Can we go to the synagogue?” They didn’t, but they still incorporated a bit of Jewish culture alongside their Christian faith.
Back when we lived in Texas, Mom began studying under Billye Brim, a minister who’d traveled to Israel in 1986, learned Hebrew, and studied with rabbis. Billye Brim eventually returned to America to teach some of the principles of Judaism from a Christian perspective. Mom attended a couple of her conferences. “I saw some parallels between Judaism and Christianity,” Mom says now. “Studying Judaism gave me a greater understanding of what I’d been taught over the years, and it actually strengthened my faith in God.”
In 2004, Mom took her interest in Judaism to a new level: she studied Hebrew and began taking me, Arielle, Joyelle, and John to Temple Israel, a synagogue in Norfolk. Every weekend, we celebrated Shabbat, the holy Jewish day of rest that begins on Friday evening and ends on Saturday evening. Sometimes, we visited other local synagogues in the area — and during one service, we formed a circle, held hands, and danced exuberantly to a song the leaders taught us. So fun!
Our weekly trips to the synagogue eventually faded, partly because Mom’s Nissan Altima broke down, meaning we couldn’t drive there to attend services. Then Mom had to work extra hours on the weekends to save up for another car. Even still, Mom encouraged us to continue studying our faith. “I’m not going to choose a path for you,” Mom told us, “but I want you to always explore the truth. God gives us all free will to choose what we will believe.”