For Flowers, Italy’s Gift to Family Better Than Gold

To us, it’s gibberish.

To her, it’s heavenly.

To us, it sounds like, “Waaaaa, Waaaaa!”

To Vonetta Flowers, no sound was ever so promising.

To us, it’s sixth place. Americans don’t come to the Winter Olympics for that.

To Flowers, it’s as good as a gold medal.

Better, even.

“There are so many people that would love to be in our shoes,” Flowers said, “whether they finish first or last.”

Flowers, an American bobsledder, never did see (or hear) it like everyone else.

When the native of Birmingham, Ala., told people she was trying out for the bobsled team, they laughed. You’re black. And black folks don’t bobsled.

Then in 2002, Flowers became the answer to this trivia question: Who was the first black athlete to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics?

But a year after fulfilling the Olympic dream she had carried since she was 9, Flowers gave birth to twin boys, Jorden and Jaden, three months earlier than she should have.

Jorden was born without ear canals. He had these tiny little underdeveloped ears only a mother could love.

Flowers and her husband, Johnny, vowed to give the boys the best life they could.

If it meant giving an Italian doctor in Verona permission to perform a complicated brain surgery on Jorden that wasn’t allowed in the U.S., so be it.

If it meant practically living in Italy up until the Winter Olympics, that’s just how it was.

If it meant speech therapy twice a week, so what?

Now Flowers hears the magical sound of a 3-year-old whose hearing only is as developed as a 5-week-old’s. Flowers has faith that full words will come for Jorden.

“You think of a baby when they finally say their first words,” she said. “We’re just going to keep praying we get those first words after so many months.”

Riding in a sled, at an alarming speed, down an ice-covered track -- big deal. Delivering precious babies dangerously early in fear of the worst -- what parent could bear it?

“How bad are they going to be?” Flowers said. “That’s obviously the question going through our minds. They were tiny, but they were beautiful little babies.”

When speedskater Chad Hedrick won the bronze medal in the 1,500-meter speedskating event, he looked as if he’d just been infected with bird flu.

Flowers would have gladly cartwheeled to Milan after finishing sixth in an event she was first in four years ago.

“It feels like I won,” Flowers said. “I did win because in this country, my son had surgery and he lived through it. This place is very special to me.”

Teaches you a little something about priorities, doesn’t it?

Last December, the Italian doctor put electrodes on Jorden’s brain. He was in the hospital for 10 days. A month later, the doctors turned on the device -- Jorden wears a small pack that transmits the signal to his brain -- and he heard his first noises.

Now, when Flowers talks to Jorden, his small eyes light up. Who cares about sixth place when your son can hear a little of the world around him?

“Certain sounds, we have to practice,” she said. “Throughout the day, we’ll turn and we’ll do stuff behind him. It’s great.”

Know what’s better than a competitive athlete? A grateful one.

“We feel like this is all part of God’s plan -- for me to come into the sport of bobsledding, have a race in Italy last year to meet [the doctor] and the Olympics are in Italy this year,” she said.

Sixth place, schmixth place.