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Heroes
How do you define a hero?
Is it someone with Popeye-like muscles and nerves of steel? Or the kind of person who tirelessly devotes their time and resources to a worthy cause?
According to Dictionary.com, a hero is: a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. An apt description, I’d say.
As kids we tend to see heroes as people who are larger than life—record breaking professional athletes at the top of many lists. Why? I’m not sure. I think somehow, along the way, we’ve blurred the line between idols and heroes. Though, if you stop and think about it, the gap between the two is really quite significant.
I don’t recall ever having a hero when I was a kid. I had people I liked to dream about (like Michael J. Fox and, um, *cough* Shaun Cassidy), people I would have liked an opportunity to get to know (the real Laura Ingalls Wilder and Walt Disney to name a few), but no real hero in the jaw-dropping starry-eyed way.
Now that I’m older, however, I see heroes in lots of places. Big ones, little ones, quiet ones and unexpected ones. But heroes, nonetheless.
I had the opportunity to watch one of them on television last week during the ceremony at Ground Zero. Six years ago, while most Americans were walking around in a fog trying to put one foot in front of the other, this person was digging through rubble looking for anything that might bring closure to the victims’ families—a piece of jewelry, a police shield, a body part for confirmation, etc. He did this day in and day out for nine months, working in the kind of hell no newspaper article or magazine story could ever depict with any true clarity.
I thought about that as I watched him reading the dozen or so names that had been assigned to him. Imagined how hard it must have been for him, and all the other first responders and recovery workers, to revisit a place that has forever changed them—mentally and, in many cases, physically. I thought about the courage it took for them to not only return to the site, but also to read the names of the victims they searched for day after day, for months on end.
To me, that’s a hero.
This past weekend my daughter placed some of her books on the roof of the car and forgot she’d put them there as she climbed into her seat. We pulled out of the parking lot and onto a busy road, her bible, catechism book, and confirmation notes blowing all over the pavement behind us. I pulled into a nearby parking lot and jumped out of the car, my mind whirling as to how I was going to retrieve her stuff from a five lane, high-traffic road without getting hit by a car (or several).
But I needn’t have worried. Because at about the same time I was glancing down the road to see what my window of opportunity might be, an angel jumped out of his car and played an all too human version of Frogger so I could stay safe.
Granted, his heroism was on a smaller scale than the Ground Zero guys…but to me, he was a hero. Because he thought about someone else before himself. Something you just don’t see a whole lot of on a day-to-day basis anymore.
Remember how I said earlier that I used to dream about Michael J. Fox as a kid? Well, the pre-teen crush has long ceased but my admiration for him has not. In fact, he’s someone who has actually made the move from dream status to hero. In my book, anyway.
For years he has fought a personal war with Parkinson’s Disease, an incurable condition that will, eventually, kill him. But despite the debilitating and depressing effects of this disease, he’s out there, trying to drum up funding and government support to find a cure.
Sure, his passion for this particular disease came after his diagnosis—the single biggest way for anyone to ever truly understand the magnitude of a debilitating condition—but the point is, he’s doing everything in his power to make a difference. Not for himself (because the likelihood he’ll see a cure in his lifetime is next to nil) but for future generations.
Same goes for Montel Williams and Multiple Sclerosis. Jerry Lewis and his decades-long fight to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy.
To me, all of these people are heroes in one way or another. Why? Because what they do isn’t pretty. It isn’t rewarded with ginormous paychecks and unending accolades. It isn’t done for recognition or to fulfill some lifelong dream.
It’s simply done.
So who do you see as a hero? Give us a reason to stop and think today, a reason to appreciate the people that are moving around us in quiet, yet heroic ways.
Hugs,
Laura