Paragliding Enables Him To Take Wing -- Sport `Frees' Bellevue Man Of Cerebral Palsy

ISSAQUAH - Michael Miller never met his mother. She died 15 minutes before his birth.

Eight months pregnant, Miller's mother was killed in a traffic accident that deprived him of his parent and precious oxygen to his brain.

Miller survived those minutes to be born with cerebral palsy on Oct. 20, 1960. He learned to feed and dress himself, to walk and to talk. He was lucky, considering the trauma of his birth. But for most of his life, Miller thought he was a prisoner in his own body.

Today, he regularly steps off Tiger Mountain, 1,650 feet high, and glides outside Issaquah with his "little wing of freedom," as he calls it. He is one of about 2,800 paragliders in the country and the first in the sport with cerebral palsy, according to the U.S. Hang Gliding Association.

Floating over the treetops, he is alone with Lake Sammamish and treated to God's view, he said. "I know in my heart that it was not just luck that allowed me to survive and experience such winged freedom," he wrote in his journal after his first solo flight. "Not only did I survive this adventure, I feel exhilarated and inspired about my abilities to do so much more in life."

Natural exhilaration is new to Miller.

Growing up without a mother or father, Miller moved from foster home to foster home until he was 7. Angry and awkward, he resisted the loving couple who eventually raised him, he said. Miller took his first drink at 14.

"It warmed me in a way that I wanted to feel for the rest of my life," he said. "For the first time in my life, I felt no anger, pain or frustration. It was an instant escape from reality, a way out from the way I was to a feeling of euphoria."

Miller was the only disabled student in his school and would do anything to be accepted, even if it meant causing trouble, he said. His drinking continued, and his tolerance grew. He began combining marijuana, cocaine, Valium and hashish. Miller said his addictions sent him drifting across the United States and eventually to Seattle, where he took shelter beneath the Alaskan Way Viaduct in 1989.

At 29, Miller was broken down and tired of fighting himself. He remembers praying for the first time while living under the viaduct: "God help me. You either strike me dead or change me," he said of his prayer. "All I had were the clothes on my back and the desire to change my life."

That was six years ago.

Miller has been sober and has held the same full-time job - caring for severely disabled people - for five years. He has an apartment in Bellevue and is proud to say he accepts no government assistance. Last spring he began pursuing his dream of paragliding.

He had wanted to paraglide since the day he saw the sport, which is similar to hang gliding, on ESPN. Daily, he would drive out to Tiger Mountain to watch paragliders floating down the hill, descending about 300 feet per minute.

"It (paragliding) is really easy to learn, but it's very difficult to master," said Fred Stockwell of Oregon, publisher of Paragliding magazine, who knows of only one other disabled paraglider in the country. "It can be like being a sailor on a ship and not understanding the weather. (The) ground is very hard, and anything could go wrong."

Miller knew the danger. Paragliding instructor Mark Chirico of Redmond praises Miller for his determination and persistence. He and Miller took seven or eight tandem flights with Chirico handling the controls, but Miller wanted to go alone.

"Everybody was nervous, including Michael," Chirico said of Miller's first solo flight this summer. Chirico has taught thousands to paraglide and had agreed to take Miller on as a student for free, lending him equipment. After months of practice on the ground, Miller launched from Tiger Mountain, his hands tied to controls to ensure he did not let go.

"When I'm by myself, everything's up to me and you can't make any mistakes," Miller said. "I'm still nervous every time I launch, and I think that's normal. It's not normal to step off a mountain."

His traumatic birth, Miller agrees, was a fitting prelude to his stormy, remarkable life. "I got everything turned around," he said. "I love my life today. . . . There is nobody I would rather be than me."