Olivia
I walk the top of a levee most days, and sometimes I meet people whose stories stay with me. This is one of them.
Of all the walkers and joggers along the trail, one always stood out—a little girl who ran with everything she had. She was tiny, swallowed up by sneakers that were too big and headphones that were too heavy. Still, her arms pumped, her face determined, and she charged ahead as if nothing could hold her back.
Most mornings she flew past me, a blur of motion. And always, several yards behind, came her father. Red-faced, sweating, struggling to keep her in sight. Sometimes he nodded, too winded to speak. Sometimes he grinned through the exhaustion, as if to say, This wasn’t my idea. It was hers.
It became a familiar sight: her pulling ahead, him trying to keep up. Over time, it became part of my routine, a small reminder that no matter what else was uncertain, Olivia would be out there running with all her might.
And then one morning, she wasn’t.
At first I thought it was me. Maybe I had started too late, or walked too quickly, and we had just missed each other. But the next day was the same. And the next. Days went by like that, then weeks. The path felt quieter without her, as if it had been waiting too. When I finally saw her father, he was alone. His steps were slower, his eyes lowered. For a moment, I thought the worst.
“She made the team,” he said before I could ask. His smile was tired, but proud. “Practice starts early. She runs with them now.”
I stood there, relieved and a little ashamed. I had imagined the worst, when I should have expected the best.
You see, Olivia has Down Syndrome, and I know what comes with it. Muscles that tire too quickly. Joints that don’t always hold. Hearts and lungs that can make effort feel dangerous. Balance and stamina that never arrive as easily as they should. By all accounts, pounding out miles on the pavement isn’t supposed to be good for her. That’s one set of limits.
But there’s another set, and it’s worse. They come from us. From the way people see her diagnosis first and her determination second. From the lowered expectations, the assumptions about what she can’t do, the quiet dismissal of what she might. Those are the limits that matter most—the ones she never agreed to and refuses to accept.
Morning after morning, she ran right past those limits. She didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t stop to explain herself. She just ran. And in the end, she ran far enough to earn a place most people never thought she’d reach: a spot on her school’s cross-country team.
Maybe that’s the lesson. Most of us wait for signs, for approval, for someone to tell us we’re ready or good enough. Olivia doesn’t. She just runs and dares the rest of us to keep up.
Way to go, Olivia. I’ll miss you on this path. But I’m so happy you found your own.
