Your Everyday Hero

Chapter 9

   I couldn't help to stare. The pure emotion in her fierce green eyes as she looked at her two younger sisters and their happy families, is something that can never be captured in words. It can't be faked or even forced.
   I couldn't help to admire her beauty that she carries inside and out. From her short curly brown hair and colorful tattoos to the beautifully scarred heart she wears on her sleeve. Even through all the hurt and despair she manages to keep going with love and faith.
   She was forced to grow up and be a parent to not only one child, but three. As I look upon her sitting in the blue lawn chair with the biggest smile on her face and her delicate hand placed in my dad's big tatted callused hand, all I see is the strongest woman in the world.
   I once had to write a story about a hero in my English class and I sat there for an entire class period creating this hero from scratch. The next day I crumpled the paper and started again. The next class I went through about eight different heros and five different story plots, until I realized I shouldn't write about a leotard wearing superhero with super strength that at the end of the day saves the world. I should write about an everyday person that deals with everyday problems with not only physical strength, but emotional and mental strength.
   She is the kind of hero, that doesn't know she is a hero. She can't see the heroism in her. She doesn't know how someone could see such a beautifully strong and genuinely good person in her. She doubts everything she does and always questions whether it was the right thing or not. She asks herself, "Am I a good mother," when she puts everything she has towards her children. She gives them everything they want and need. She would give her last breath to her children. She questions whether she is a good person when she will see a homeless person walking across the street and quietly says a prayer under her breath as if no one could hear her. Or she will open her home welcomingly to someone and asks for nothing in return.
   She has asked me before, "How can you see me as a hero? I don't see it."
   The answer is: You are a woman of great strength. You have proven that the impossible is possible. You have shown me countless times that no matter how hard the Devil has tried to push you down, that you will forever fight him. To never let what other people think of me bring me down or to change the person that I am. That even though I am just a girl, I can do anything I set my mind to. To never settle for less than I deserve and that I have a voice and to use it. You may not wear a leotard or have any superpowers, but you are a hero. My hero.