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A Story with Legs
Text: Joanne Lefson. Article from the September 2012 issue of Compleat Golfer.
If you’re needing some motivation for your golfing game, Joanne Lefson shows you why you have no more excuses.
Inspiration. It sometimes slices me up when I least expect it. Watching the Open Championship was a classic example. I wasn’t rooting for Adam Scott as much as I was running (in slow motion) for the M&M’s. I thought he had it in the bag and then… well, if you don’t know what happened, then you’re reading the wrong magazine!
Later that evening, I switched on the TV again. The Olympics began that week, and there are always some encouraging stories that shine through. But I got my Olympic dose of inspiration a week before the games started and I can’t imagine hearing anything else quite like it – it would take quite a feat to beat this story, even after the 2016 Olympics, when golf will finally be allowed back into the greatest show on earth (sorry Disneyland!). I know this is a golf column, but as sport unites us all, I trust you’ll forgive me for dedicating this month’s piece to something that doesn’t have 14 clubs and a rules book as high as the Empire State Building.
So there I was, thrilled that Ernie had just won The Open, but also depressed at the amount of junk food I had consumed. I switched channels and locked into one of the most amazing stories I’d ever heard. Excuse me if you’ve already read about it, but here goes.
In a US community hospital sometime back in the ’80s, a little girl was born. A bundle of joy to the mother she may have known, this girl was placed for immediate adoption. Jennifer, as she would later be named, wasn’t ‘normal’. She was born with no legs. Adopted by an average family and raised in an average mid-American town with a population of about 50 (including the dogs and cats), the young child grew up without fear. When she turned five, the family bought a TV, and Jennifer was immediately drawn to gymnastics and the 14-year-old gymnastic sensation Dominique Moceanu (the darling of the 1996 Olympics – if the name doesn’t ring a bell, an image of her cute little face certainly would).
Dominique became Jennifer’s instant hero. She inspired Jennifer to dream big despite her disability. It wasn’t long before she had found a way to do cartwheels, somersaults and the like. Posters of Dominique adorned her bedroom walls and made Jennifer dream of one day competing in the Olympics. She already excelled at volleyball, basketball and softball, but thanks to Dominique’s inspiration, she went on to win state titles and compete as a Junior Olympic gymnast.
More bizarre than the thought of a legless human doing gymnastics, though, was the sequence of events that followed. During the 1996 Olympic games, Jennifer and her mom’s eyes were glued to Dominique as she won gold. At the presentation ceremony, the camera panned to her proud parents sitting in the stands. Their full names appeared on the screen and Jennifer’s adoptive mother was dumbfounded – there was something about the names that sounded far too familiar.
She later took out the adoption papers and indeed, the names were a perfect match. Dominique wasn’t just Jennifer’s childhood idol. She was her biological sister!
Goosebumps. Sound the music!
“More bizzarre than the thought of a legless human doing gymnastics was the sequence of events that followed.”
Jennifer’s surrogate parents decided to keep the information secret from their adopted daughter, but when she turned 16 and started asking questions about her ‘real’ parents, the vault opened. Jennifer could hardly believe the news and it took her another four years to send an emotional letter to her unknown sister, along with her birth certificate and images displaying their uncanny resemblance. ‘Ever since I was about six years old, I’ve been obsessed with gymnastics and I always watched you on TV,’ she wrote. You had been my idol my whole life and you turned out to be my sister! I feel that I have one chance to show you and prove to you that I’m not some crazy person, but I’m sure after seeing all the papers, you’ll see that I’m serious.’
It was the biggest bombshell of Dominique’s life. Upon receiving the letter, she immediately contacted her mother, who confirmed the news. Dumitru and Camelia Moceanu had moved to the US from their native Romania in the 1980s. When Jennifer was born without any legs, her father made the decision to discard the child because of ‘unaffordable medical expenses’. Dominique was so furious with him for doing this that she cut off all communication with him, although they reconciled before he died of cancer a year later in 2008.
In Dominique’s best-selling book Off Balance, she recalls how her father controlled her mother, how every meaningful decision was made by him alone and how she would fear for her life if she had a bad performance on the bar. The fact that she got to meet her biological sister after 20 years made up for everything; that they both love gymnastics, have identical handwriting, an identical laugh, chuckle and smile… well, that’s simply mind- blowing, according to Dominique.
Jennifer is now a professional aerial gymnast living in Studio City, California, and enjoys a close relationship with her sister, who has since married a fellow gymnast. When the sisters were asked what they made of the fact that they both became gymnasts independently of each other, thousands of miles apart, with no knowledge of each other, Jennifer said: “I don’t think it is a coincidence; it is nature versus nurture. Nature is so much more dominant than you could ever have made me believe before.”
After finishing this column, I did a quick check with my mom to see if there was anything I needed to know (Ernie can be relieved, I’m not his long-lost biological sister). If this story isn’t enough inspiration, check out Pudsey, the recent winner of Britain’s Got Talent. If that still leaves you panting for more, it’s only four years until we go gaga for golf in Rio!
Let the countdown begin.
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