Heroes

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Celebration, FL

Dear Ones,

Art and I leave for Merri’s wedding this morning, the 89^th anniversary of my mother’s birth. There’s not much of a connection between that fact and the rest of the letter, but I think it’s kind of special and wanted to share. J I also wanted to invite you to join my extended family’s yahoo group for conversation about the elections http://groups.yahoo.com/group/queryforobama/ and to ask you to check out the video made by my sister, Nancy, in support of her favorite candidate. http://youtube.com/user/NancyEarls4Obama

I guess there IS a connection between Mom and this letter. My large family’s interest in politics started when mom borrowed an idea from Rose Kennedy and had us discuss current events at to the dinner table. She also brought us to the library every week because she loved to read and I imagine she’d have been right at home at this month’s book club.

The book was Burr, the fictionalized biography of the second vice-president of the United States in which Gore Vidal presents the men of the American Revolution as fully human as many of the politicians of today. The chicanery, licentiousness and obsessive control he described in our founding fathers upset several people for these were not the men we were brought up to admire. As we talked about the need for icons and heroes, I said, “Don’t call firefighters, soldiers, or baseball players heroes,” and shocked the group. I feel I owe it to them and my heroes, to explain what I meant.

Of course heroic acts are part of the job description for firefighters and soldiers, but the ones I know would rather be called “Friend” and remembered than “Hero” and forgotten.

Think of the firefighter who rushes into a burning building because he was trained to do so and leaves behind three little ones while trying to save a cat. His firehouse family surrounds his wife and kids, starts a scholarship fund, takes the girls to father-daughter dances in his name until the town cuts its budget when a tax increase is voted down by people who don’t trust “big” government and benefits are lost so the widow move away from her support system because she can’t afford to live in the town where her husband died.

And what of the woman soldier who signed up for the National Guard because she was promised a college education and the privilege of protecting her home that goes back ­ to the farm her great-grandparents kept ­ through the dust bowl that is now part of an agri-business corn farm for ethanol which takes almost as much energy to produce as the oil it is meant to replace because we can’t depend on the Middle East to meet our needs even after she’s served four years on and off mostly in Iraq. She’s only 22 and college has to wait because, although she didn’t intend to, she signed up to serve her country and it won’t let her go home.

Maybe a ball player isn’t a hero unless you’re the parent of a chronically ill 8 year old who gets a box seat and for whom the ball player steps out of line because he sees in the child his own little one and says “No more in my lifetime,” and starts a charity in the name of this little guy whose eyes are as blue and deep as the ocean and the boy becomes hero to the man.

We all need heroes – stories of people with courage in the face of outrageous obstacles, who choose to do the right thing despite the consequences. Legends, classic fiction, and the fairytales help children discover and adults remember that despite the wickedness of some, the universe supports those of kind heart and righteous courage.

Watch pre-schoolers play and you’ll see how they become the characters in their favorite stories. When they act out the Lion King and play Scar, the wicked brother of the dead king, the know what it feels like to be cruel, but after a while it is Simba, the young son who comes out of hiding to save his home, that they want to become. Or, they end up favoring “Nala” a straight talking female who holds her best friend accountable for his actions.

Past generations of girls mostly, imagined themselves as Snow White and Rose Red, who danced with animals and married handsome princes. We read these stories over and over but the lesson that seeped into our unconscious was not that we were to be weak and vulnerable. The Grimm Brothers collected the folktales of many cultures and found in them the message of the Christian Gospels. Our humanity makes us weak but the “The Prince of Peace” recognizes and makes our strength possible and allows us to claim our unique beauty.

As parents, we hope our children become kind and courageous, strong and beautiful. As children mature they begin to see these characteristics in the people around them and, eventually realize the qualities in themselves.

Who are my heroes? Abraham Lincoln and Laura Ingalls Wilder are the first I remember naming, but it’s my mom and dad who move me now that I am sixty and can see that while Abe and Laura gave me dreams, Mom and Dad gave me character.

Peace and good__________,

Beth