Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Founder of the Special Olympics

Playing backyard sports is about as American as red, white, and blue polo shirts, Barack Obama Chia Pets,and Sacagawea coins.

It’s there behind the house, between the shrubs and birdbath, around the tool shed, and dangerously close to mom’s flower garden where dreams are sculpted, mostly from creative imaginations.

When Eunice Kennedy Shriver peered out of the curtains to the backyard of her Maryland home, she was also overcome with visages of grandeur.

Granted, her backyard was probably a lot bigger than yours or mine. Her vision certainly was.

 

It was in that plot where the older sister of John F. Kennedy created Camp Shriver for physically and mentally challenged children in 1962. Eventually, the camp spawned the Special Olympics. Today, the games boast more than 2.5 million athletes in 180 countries.

Kennedy Shriver passed away earlier this week at the age of 88. Her contributions to the world she left behind are irreplaceable and irrefutable.

This weekend, when you finally decide to trim that lawn, don’t just kick the Frisbee aside seconds before its perilous doom by lawn mower blades. Take a moment to imagine the Wiffleball field or the outline of the end zones which once gave you hope that anything was possible.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver once did, and for that, the world outside the backyard is a better place.