5 Minute Friday

Today's word for a five minute type it all out is:  Hero

I think of all the things that do not mean hero to me.  I begin X-ing out ideas of heroes.  Football players, no.  Basketball players, no.  Actors, no.  Actresses, no.  Big business peeps, no.  What's left?

We spent childhood looking at all those types of people and putting a crown on them.  That crown wasn't one of hero but one of plain out infatuation.

You get older and you realize that maybe a true hero is someone that may not have a lot of glitz and shine but maybe its just that they made it through hell and walked out unscathed.

What is a hero to me?

Rikki's mom-in-law battling blood cancer and smiling her way through it.  That's a hero.

Those kids you see on the St. Jude's commercials.  Sweet, innocent children who may not make it to the next birthday because they have to face a trial and tribulation that we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.

The cop who was working his beat and stopped to throw a football with a kid in the ghetto.  That is heroic  You know why?  Because he busted the stereotype of the white cop in the ghetto.  He busted the mold that said he'd be a jackass for getting out of his car.  He formed a bond with a kid and maybe just maybe the way of life surrounding that kid will not be able to penetrate into him because he's made a friend in blue who isn't yelling at him but throwing the football with him for the hell of it.

The teacher who works with your kid and gets paid in peanuts but gets more hurdles placed in front of them each year.  She/he is bringing the work home at night and putting her kids on the backburner.  See, if she wants to continue to make a way for her biological/adopted kids she has to make sure your kids will have all their ducks in a row for class tomorrow.  I bet you didn't get that memo.  She's buying those two kids in her class who wear shorts to school on twenty degree days winter coats.  He's picking up some extra snacks to shove in a book bag for that kid that comes to school ravenous because whoever he's living with this week doesn't get the idea of nutrition is more valuable than a case of Marlboro Reds.  And you say, well they get the whole summer off - most of them end up working a job in the summer and trying to pull together what your kid will learn next year in those "months off".

The nurse that stayed past her shift to hang out with you her patient.  You were afraid and she saw it.  She stayed with you because leaving you would have broken her heart.  

The doctor that did the procedure at no cost because he knew the people couldn't afford it and he knew it needed to be done or life would not be the nicest to you.

Heroes are people we see every day - driving the fire truck, serving up a meal, taking her kids to dance class or baseball.  We just don't normally see them as heroes because we have to wait for someone to tell us about them.  

Time to open our eyes and see if we cannot achieve some type of heroic trait about ourselves that will make others say - I could do that.

Time to thank the heroes that are in our midst every day.  With out that little push to continue they may just decide to back down.

What a scary world that would be.