We all know what a war hero is. But what is an everyday hero? Is a person who lives heroically, and gives inspiration to others a hero? Surely.
God bless our war heroes. They pay the price of our freedom. God bless our everyday heroes, too. They pay the price of our comfortable lifestyle. Everyday warrior heroes in my family would be all my relatives who served in the Armed Forces, whether they shipped out to the battlefield or not. Thank you, from your loving sister, daughter, niece.
Everyday heroes are the saint and martyrs that abound in everyday life. We all readily name our parents, but I bet there are those who recognize the hero in them where we might not, or when we forget. Take my Grammy, Home-front Hero. She never went over, but she too was martyred, by the death of her brother. She responded by raising a brood of heroes: firemen, teachers, workers with the handicapped in the community--and some in their own family--and those who simply worked right up to the day they died to provide for their own. If that isn't the definition of a hero, nothing else is, either. Thanks to Grammy (posthumously), and again to the everyday (living) heroes in my family.
I don't want to forget what I learned from September 11, 2001. We say aloud that our firemen and police officers are heroes, but we secretly pray that we never have to see them martyred, as we all did that awful day in Manhattan. So now our world is normalizing again, and there are many fewer killed in their normal day-to-day duties. But they still die, and far too often. Thank them again for their everyday heroism and sacrifices and pray they are spared the ultimate gift to the community, their lives.
The Fifth of July is a return to the everyday world. It's quieter, and less spectacular, but the heroes are there, too.
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Little Pond
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