Extraordinary people, ordinary lives
Written by: | 23 Sep 2008
Following the marking of Sept. 11 and with the passing of Pearl Harbor Day, my thoughts turn to heroes. What is a hero? Can anyone become a hero?
Webster’s College Dictionary defines a hero as “1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities” 2. any person who has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal.”
I believe that in modern America we have become jaded to heroic acts. The media, whether it be in the form of movies, television or news coverage, leads us to believe that all heroes must fit the first definition; someone, usually a man, who has done something extraordinary, like a New York City firefighter entering a crumbling twin tower as survivors struggle out, or a machine gun-toting vigilante pursuing justice for the little guy, or even Superman.
Most of us don’t witness such heroic acts going about our ordinary lives.
I believe heroes walk amongst us, much like the gods used to walk among the ancient Greeks. We just no longer see them in their day-to-day glory.
I believe heroes walk amongst us, much like the gods used to walk among the ancient Greeks. We just no longer see them in their day-to-day glory.
I think a hero is anyone who struggles, against sometimes-insurmountable odds, to accomplish the ordinary. A hero is anyone who puts her own needs secondary to the needs of others who are less fortunate or less powerful than she is. A hero exudes love, patience and acceptance in the face of the inane.
The clerk in your local mini-mart might be a hero or your neighborhood soccer mom. Your mother or father may be a hero. Your best friend could be one, maybe even you.
I would like to challenge you to look for the heroes in your own backyard and then find some way to honor or memorialize them, to let them know just how great you think they are.
I believe we need to do all we can to offset the overwhelming bad news we live with every day. And this is one way to do just that.
My father fits both of Webster’s definitions of a hero. He did a laudable job of raising me and he was a true war hero.
My father started his naval career as an ensign stationed at Pearl Harbor. His ship was on patrol when Pearl Harbor was attacked and WWII officially began for the United States. The ships in his patrol were among the few that survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
I would like to challenge you to look for the heroes in your own backyard and then find some way to honor or memorialize them, to let them know just how great you think they are.
He ended the war in command of a submarine patrolling the Atlantic. My father died on Pearl Harbor Day, Dec. 7, 1990.
As a tail-end member of the Baby Boom generation, I find the America we now inhabit, (post-Vietnam and post-Colombine) violent and terrorism-filled and bewildering.
We are mired in a war that most of us do not support. Children are killing children. Not only in the streets of our poverty-stricken inner cities, but in bastions of relatively affluent religious conservatism.
In the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, we find that our last illusion, that as Americans we are safe from domestic terrorism, is as shattered as the images we have seen blasted across our newsstands and our television screens.
I long for my father. Somewhere in my adult/child mind he and his generation represent solidity and safety. Although World War II was terrible in its violence and inhumanity, it still seems as if there was a plan, a reason and a heroism surrounding the fighting and the winning of it.
In the years since my father’s death I have thought quite a bit about our relationship and what he meant to me. While at times harsh, my father was one of the foundations of my universe. He taught me respect, responsibility, self-discipline and love.
My father set an example of a strong work ethic and rigorous honesty and integrity. When he died, I felt as if the platform of my life tipped and all of its contents were threatening to spill off. In the years since, his example has steadied me and helped guide my life’s direction.
It is my hope that in honoring my father and sharing here a small part of his story, I can find common ground with others of my generation who are as in awe of our parents’ era as we are perplexed by our own. Also that it might serve to remind us that he was, as each of is each of us, an ordinary man living in a rather extraordinary time.
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