For the past seven years, wherever Natalie Du Toit has travelled a precious sheet of paper has gone with her, although she can now recite the message by heart: "The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It isn't a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for."
Ahead of the 2004 Athens Olympics, Du Toit was returning from a training session in the pool on Feb 26 2001, just four weeks after her 17th birthday, when she was knocked off her scooter by a car in Cape Town which resulted in her left leg being amputated above the knee. Her Olympic dream temporarily over, she switched her attention to the Athens Paralympics where she won four gold medals. "I'm one of those people who can truthfully say that out of something bad came something really good," says Du Toit, who has been named in the South African swimming team for Beijing this time round.
"I was very lucky - if that's not a strange thing to say - because during the week when the doctors were trying to save my leg, I was receiving so much morphine I was as high as a kite, seeing ghosts and all that kind of thing. "It must have been a living nightmare for my parents, who had to make all the decisions because I was lying there with what was left of my leg held together in a metal frame and 24 units of blood flowing through me.
"Basically, my leg burst open like a squashed tomato, destroying all the muscle and tissue. "I was dimly aware of some guy - apparently it was a doctor - mentioning the word amputation but it didn't really sink in." Many teenagers would be reluctant to don a swimsuit again and parade their stump before curious eyes, but Du Toit could not wait to plunge back into the pool. "I was more worried that people might be distressed by the sight of me because, though the amputation doesn't look too bad, at the top of my leg I'd had a skin graft where the bone popped through," she said.
"It was a bit of a weird colour so it wasn't as nice as it looks now; it was pretty much like a shark bite. So I think it was more of an adjustment for other people than it was for myself. "Being back in the water was freaky; I was swimming round and round in circles at first. "Everyone told me I'd have problems with my first tumble-turn but I didn't, the body automatically changes even if the mind doesn't. It felt as though I was still putting two feet on the wall but, of course, there was only one.
"Swimming was my life when the accident happened, so nothing has changed. It's still my life. "I'm not hassled that I've lost my leg. Yes, sometimes I'd love to run down the street when I'm in a hurry and I'll never be able to do that. But I can still do everything that everyone else does. "My friends and family treat me exactly the same now as they did before February 2001, so it's difficult to be negative when everyone around you is so positive.
"Things like my accident happen for a reason. You can never give up on life. In the Paralympics I saw swimmers missing arms and legs, I saw athletes who couldn't walk and couldn't talk, I saw runners who were blind. "I met people who had no chance whatsoever of winning a gold medal but who had enjoyed an even greater triumph simply by being there. Those are the people we should look up to." It isn't a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.
"Each and every one among us should have that attitude, not just the disabled," she adds. @Email:sports@thenational.ae