Friday, October 27, 2006

Hero

My friend Sherri inspired me to work and see if inspiration happens. BTW, Sherri is one of those deep wonderful people that you only wish you knew because you've read all of their books. Just because Sherri has not published any books has not blinded me to the fact that I'm lucky to know her. Publishing books is not an indicator of success. Some really bad books have been published. The depth is what is hard to come by. Anyway...

Greg was a hero. That is what he knew how to do. He showed it the most as a high school basketball superstar. Now admittedly, it was just a small school in a small town and his college experience was a small school in a small town and no, he didn't play Division I ball and certainly not the NBA, but really that doesn't change the fact he was a hero.

He was a really good basketball player but what made Greg a hero was that he could save a game. Many times the team was behind by a few points with only seconds remaining and Greg dug into his bag of smooth stones (David analogy) and slung it bravely at the giant and down he fell. I was there. I saw it. More than once. His brother was a hero too. I saw that more clearly because since Greg, I now knew what to look for.

We all need heroes. There are times they are indispensible. The problem with heroes is that they don't know what to do unless there is a crisis. Sometimes they create crisis (again think David).

Greg died in a car accident over the weekend. His life was pretty rocky since he got out of school. But I think it would be unfair to Greg to not look at his true nature -- he was a hero. It isn't as easy as it looks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nicely said. However I disagree about one point. Not about Greg, I didn't know him, but a comment in general. You said " The problem with heroes is that they don't know what to do unless there is a crisis." I think there's another kind of hero...like your dad and mine. They responded to a crisis (war) and defended our country at the risk of their own life. That was heroric; but then they came back from the war, worked hard, paid all their bills, refused to live beyond their means, raised a family, stayed faithful to their wives, and earned a good reputation. I think there's something heroic about that...beyond the crisis. Just a thought...not meaning to take anything away from thoughts of Greg.

Brian said...

Hero is a generic term. My thought was comparing Greg to David. My dad and your dad weren't David. They were faithful men of the country willing to serve. They weren't career military men, at least my dad wasn't.