Mary Lou Retton opens up about her miraculous recovery after a near-death experience last year, reflecting, "God wasn't ready for me."
The former Olympic champion shared her harrowing ordeal with a rare form of pneumonia that left her intubated in the ICU in 2023. The illness was so severe that doctors at one point advised her four daughters to prepare for the worst.
"The doctors told them to come to say their goodbyes," Retton recalled. She spent a month in the hospital, with her daughters praying over her. Her daughter McKenna told her, "Mommy, it’s OK, you can go." Reflecting on this moment, Retton said, "I didn’t have much of a relationship with my mother, but I can’t imagine what that was like, to watch their mom on her deathbed."
Retton believes her survival was due to divine intervention, feeling that "God wasn’t ready for me yet." However, she acknowledges that her recovery has been arduous and ongoing, stating, "I'll never be the same."
“It’s been really hard,” she admitted, mentioning that she still needs daily oxygen. “My lungs are so scarred. It will be a lifetime of recovery. My physicality was the only thing I had, and it was taken away from me. It’s embarrassing.”
The challenge of adapting to her new normal is especially poignant as the Paris Olympics approach this month. Retton reminisced about her own Olympic glory 40 years ago this August, when she became the first American woman to win gold in the gymnastics all-around. Her perfect 10 in the floor routine and her final event, the vault, are legendary.
“My coach Bela Karolyi looked at me and said, ‘Mary Lou, you need to give a 10.’ He’d never said that before,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘You’re putting pressure on me? I’ll show you!’”
Retton delivered a flawless performance, and she vividly remembers the moment. “You can see on the video that I was smiling before my feet touched the floor,” she said. “The Pauley Pavilion was shaking with all the cheering. They were all shouting, ‘Ten! Ten! Ten!’”
That historic moment catapulted Retton to stardom, making her a household name and the first female athlete to appear on a Wheaties cereal box. Two years later, she surprised the world again by retiring from gymnastics.
“I had gone above and beyond all I’d ever wanted to do,” she said. “My goal was to win something at the Olympics. And then I went and won the whole thing.”
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The Quran - Chapter Al-Mumtahanah: 08
Allah does not forbid you from dealing kindly and fairly with those who have neither fought nor driven you out of your homes. Surely Allah loves those who are fair.
