What Makes a Hero?

I'm interested in the subject of heroes.  I want to know what really qualifies a person as a hero.  According to my daughters, their Daddy is a hero.  Okay, I can understand that one.  He is a firefighter so there are many people who might see him as a hero.  When questioned recently, my 8-year-old's comment was, "Daddy's my hero because he's Daddy."  Everyone together now...in a chorus of sighing "Ohhhh's."  There, that was nice.  Aside from her obvious adoration of Tradd for the "Daddy" thing she also is in love with the fact that he is a fireman.

Like I said, I think there are plenty of other people who might see him as a hero because he is a firefighter.  He says he's not a hero just because he loves to run into burning buildings to rescue people who are trapped inside while fighting back encroaching flames.  Yup, I see his point.  I know him better than that.  The action of firefighting may seem heroic, but I know that he's not doing it because he wants to be somebody's hero.  He, as with most firefighters, just has some synapses that misfire at the sight of smoke and flames.  Where all logic dictates that people should run away from these things, I think firefighters' synapses shoot the wrong direction and ping off some big disk in their brain that tells them to run into the flames.  Lucky for my family, there have recently been wonderful advancements in the aspects of fire knowledge, training, fire apparatus and protective equipment.

I know that firefighting is a compulsion for him though.  It is not a choice he made because he wanted to be sticky-tagged as "Hero."  My question comes up because of a friend of mine.  She is also a fireman's wife, but says she doesn't believe in heroes.  What?!  I mean, didn't she ever watch Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider Man, The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Ponch and Jon on CHIPS, Andy Griffith, Magnum PI?  These were just a few of my childhood heroes.  My modern list has been expanded to include my Dad, Tradd, our girls and my Mom.  Yes, my mom is included in there and this is where part of my confusion rests.  My mom is one of my heroes, but I don't know if I thought of her this way when I was a child.

I am noticeably absent from the various heroes that my daughters often list.  To me, it is noticeable anyways.  Tradd, of course, just smiles at how he definitely tops the Hero list while peons such as the X-men and Luke Skywalker are left wallowing in his firefighting ashes.  So, what qualifies Tradd as "Hero" just because he's Storm, Kacy and Cameron's Daddy, while I get labeled as nothing more than Mommy because I'm their Mommy?  This Hero parent versus The Other parent is obvious in every aspect of life, even though I try to take it in stride.

For example, when we are in the truck, heading to the fire station to see Daddy, we are riding in "Daddy's truck," going to "Daddy's fire station."  As we arrive, the girls shout, "Look!  There's Daddy's Jeep!"  Never mind the fact that I had this Jeep well before I ever met their Daddy.  When I am done hauling in groceries and dinner is cooking, I get to go outside to play with the girls and Tradd.  Of course, while I have been cooking, they have been playing for the past half-hour.  When dinner is finally ready, the girls say, "Daddy, you cooked a good dinner."  Tradd usually grins at me across the table and tells the girls to, "Thank Mommy.  She's the one who cooked for us tonight."  The damage has already been done though.

When The Hero gets off work in the morning and walks through the door, there are squeals of, "Daddy's home!" as the girls all rush to him for hugs and kisses.  I don't get this greeting though.  Since I'm always home with the girls, they greet me every morning; but never with leaps of joy, shouts of "Mommy is awake!" or giant hugs.  Nope.  My greeting usually contains the words, "I don't want to get up yet," or, "Want she-juice," which is Cameron's code for cranberry juice, or, "I'm hungry.  When's breakfast?"  These audible words are typically interspersed with rude grunts and whines as my sleepy little cherubs shove their faces deep into the pillows and turn their butts to me.

So, why is my mom one of my heroes now?  I always remember being enamored with my mother.  She could sing like an angel and she could sew or crochet things more beautifully than anyone else in the world.  My mom knew absolutely everything.  She was home to take care of my brother, Phillip, and me all summer long.  She picked thousands of cactus stickers out of me throughout my childhood and kept an aloe plant on the fireplace to deal with any bites or stings.  My mom kept up a continuous flow of starch baths for Phillip and me as we swam through chicken pox together.  She fended off rattlesnakes, tried not to aim for coyotes with her car, kept Phillip from offing me on many occasions and if I ever had a problem in life I knew I could always talk to her.  I think that most children feel some of these same emotions toward their moms, whether cactus stickers or death-by-older-brother were issues for them or not.  I wonder sometimes if I will ever measure up to my mom though.  What did she do that made the difference?

I won't lie; I actually try sometimes to score some brownie points with my kids.  I hope someday to reach, or even surpass, the heroic status Tradd has achieved.  It just seems like my kids throw a zillion more hurdles in front of me to test my heroic abilities.  It's as though Tradd has a multiple guess test.  I imagine the questions are something close to what the Bridge Keeper asks in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Question 1: What is your name?

Answer 1: Tradd

Question 2: What is your quest?

Answer 2: Firefighting

Question 3: What is your favorite color?

Answer 3: Green

Yeah!  We all should now leap for joy because Tradd has just been dubbed The Super Duper Firefighting Hero Daddy of the Universe!

My tests are not so easy though.  My tests are usually timed and involve actually being in at least three separate places at one time and serving, pleasing, tending to, or helping at least two different people at all times.  I know that there's some misunderstood quantum jump theory that says that this might actually be possible, but since my kids haven't studied quantum physics yet and I'm certainly no expert on the subject, I'm often left beaten and defeated at the end of every day because I can't pass my tests.

I have to wonder though, did I put my Mom through the same quantum jump tests?  Did she ever feel like she succeeded?  Does any Mom anywhere ever feel like she has succeeded?  Maybe it is just a general difference between moms and dads; dads are destined to be heroes to their children while moms are left sweeping up the dusty footprints the heroes track through the house.

My Dad was always my hero when I was growing up.  I was enamored with my Mom, but my Dad definitely topped my Hero List, just above Pa Ingalls and the ectoplasm shooting Ghostbusters.  I'm trying to figure out the precise moment when my Dad became my hero.  I think it was somewhere around Question 1: What is your name?  Answer 1: Daddy.

Yes, that was definitely it.  It is the simple fact that he is my father and he is actually a "Daddy."  My Dad was never absent from my childhood.  He was always there for me, for my mom, for our family.  My Daddy, as with Pa Ingalls, has always placed a strong emphasis on the love and time he devotes to his wife and children.  The snapshot-like memories from my childhood include many images of the inside of Home Depot every Saturday morning as my feet blurred in a fruitless effort to keep up with my Dad's 6-foot on-a-mission stride.  I see snippets of myself tinkering with scraps of wood, spare nails and available hammers just trying to build things like my Daddy.  There is a flash of my Dad pushing me across the yard in a wheelbarrow as we wore matching t-shirts that my Mom sewed for us.

These family images are peppered with random reflections of my parents being a couple and not just parents. The two of them, walking hand-in-hand and laughing together.  My Dad, shopping for the perfect jewelry that would make my Mom swoon.  His face, lighting up as he delicately placed the gift upon her skin.  Me, falling asleep in my cozy bed as my parents ate crab legs, drank wine, talked and watched Dallas together in the other room.  Those were all things that taught me not just about my Daddy, the hero, but my Mom, the hero too.  It may have taken me years to see my Mom for the hero that she is, but looking back, I realize that my Dad knew it all along.

As for Tradd and me, I notice that our tastes are only slightly different from those of my parents.  Substitute power tools for jewelry and Ghost Hunters for Dallas and I realize I learned a lot from my parents about marrying my hero and my best friend.  Tradd and I both prefer to do things that involve our entire family because we love being together: we have our own family groove.  Tradd, by no stretch of the imagination, has a romantic bone in him, but it all works out in the end because the tinkering I did as a little girl paid off and I would rather build something with Tradd than receive jewelry from him.  As for the hero part, there is the basic desire of his to cut apart cars with oversized scissors and work side-by-side with other sweaty men to put a fire out all for the purpose of rescuing anyone trapped inside.  This, of course, makes him a hero in my eyes too.  But aside from his career heroism, it is Tradd's commitment and devotion to our girls and me that makes him My Hero.

I guess what launches someone to the top of my Hero List is simply the love and commitment we hold toward each other for life.  Even if my Mom couldn't sing like and angel or didn't really know everything, she would still be my hero for her loving efforts to keep her blood-soaked little girl alive and not scared as my eyelid was sewn back on after my brother severed it with a pvc pipe.  If my Dad hadn't been named "Daddy" he would still be my hero because he always wanted me around and taught me life's lessons at simple moments like this, whether he realized it or not.  If Tradd wasn't a firefighter or a paramedic, he would still be my hero for squeezing my hand and ordering me to, "Stay with me, Cindy," as the doctors tried desperately to stop my bleeding after Storm was born.  It is all these little things at some very non-heroic times that have given me my favorite heroes.  I'm left with the hope that the little things I do for my girls everyday will eventually elevate me to hero status in their eyes too.