Swords and Knights in Shining Armor

I am going to admit it. While trying to define “heroism”, I turned to the dictionary and came back with “great bravery”.  Putting the words “great” and “bravery” together only makes me think about knights in shining armor riding off on tall stallions with a mighty sword to save a captured princess.

            Nowadays, seeing this picture is unlikely.

            But that’s not to say that “heroism”, or “great bravery”, doesn’t exist. In this world, I look at bravery differently. I see it as someone standing up for what he or she believes in, someone who isn’t afraid of what the rest of society thinks, or even someone who has the courage to rise above suffering for the good of someone else.

            When I try to think of a modern hero, I think of people like Helen Keller or Eleanor Roosevelt. But my personal hero is a lot closer to me; she comes from home.

            It was my mother who told me “charity starts with the family”. The first time she said those words to me, I must have been seven or eight years old, but I never thought much about it.

            Now, I’m ten years older, and I know that behind those words, she meant to say, “If you can’t be charitable with your family, you certainly can’t be charitable with anyone else.”

            There are plenty of people I can name as heroes, but my mother fits my definition perfectly. She can be terse and overly honest, but she’s one of the kindest people I know. She tells it like she sees it, and she opens her home to anyone who calls for help, starting, of course, with the family.

            I like to say she’s my best friend as well as my mother, because I can tell her anything. She knows me inside and out, and she teaches me lessons I could never forget. Maybe I’m being vague, but what she really does is put everyone else above her. She makes people talk to her so that she can help with their problems, and even if they neglect her afterwards, she takes it all. She takes the hurt and calls it a sacrifice. And when they come back to her, she happily helps once more.

            Would it be cliché to say that I’d simply like to follow in her footsteps?

            Because in my eyes, she’s holding the mightiest sword of all.