We Could Be Heros
Heroes help you understand your world.
Without knowing the influence they hold over you, heroes give you strength and show you what is needed to navigate the world. Heroes can build you up and also tear you down.
My father was an anti-hero!
On my final visit to him in March 2017, as he lay in bed, filled with liquid morphine, I asked him if he had any last bits of vital importance that he would like to share with me. He just nodded his head and said “No” in that depression era, cold war, tone of voice. He kept true to his personality, quiet and stern with his head full of brilliant numbers that played on a dark stage somewhere in his mind.
I had travelled to Seattle to thank him for all that he had done for me, and what he said in response was not an issue. He had put a roof over my head and was always there in his quiet, stern manner. That was enough.
Over the years, his silence taught me to keep my own counsel.
He taught me to plan out my future, to reach as far as I could with whatever skills I possessed.
I was fortunate in that at an early age; I knew I possessed a modicum of talent when it came to storytelling.
My Mother was the hero.
She showed me a wall of books written by men and women who had also become my heroes. Between the pages of these brilliant writers, I found refuge.
Our family frequently travelled in search of Dad’s tenured professorship. We’d travel from the west coast to the east coast and beyond, from Southern California to New Jersey.
I had no time to make friends and found that with all the upheaval in life, books were the one constant. Books were always at the ready: they had a beginning, a middle and an end, and an in-between, every page of the story was an adventure.
The stories had heroes and villains, not-so-good guys and not-so-bad guys, each possessed with unique human qualities. They went on great searches and found excellent knowledge. These characters were forced into difficult situations and had to use their wits to survive. They were spies and detectives, all in search of something.
All of these characters were dangling at the end of their rope.
Somewhere in the middle of my father’s stern gaze and my Mother’s care, a young boy was learning to navigate the world with all the strength he could muster.
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes!
Robert