Heroes Don't Always Ride White Horses...

I got locked in my garage this morning. I guess to be technically accurate, I would have to say that I could have left anytime. My car, however, was locked in the garage, making it difficult for me to leave as a result.  Apparently the cables snapped on the electronic garage door, and the spring, and a host of other mechanical stuff so that my remote wouldn’t work, and the door couldn’t manually be lifted either. After pushing the button repeatedly and expecting different results, I realized that I was essentially locked in the garage and it was time to call John to come to the rescue. My "knight in shining armor" arrives, not on a white horse, but in a blue Chevy pickup truck.

Who do you call when you need a hero? I count on John to always have my back and hope that I do the same for him. He’s pulled me out of more situations than I could even count, fixed more things that I’ve broken, helped to mend friendships that I’ve severed, cleaned up messes, replaced ovens and microwaves that I’ve burned things in (but I digress – that is a post for another time). He’s helped me, our children, our grandchildren, my family, his family, our friends….the list goes on. I call him whenever I need a hero.

He isn’t the first hero that I’ve had in my lifetime and he isn’t the only hero that I have. My Dad was probably the first and remains my hero to this day. There isn’t much that he doesn’t know about and though I try to give him days of rest now (since he is 85 years old), there is no question in my mind that if I needed a hero, he would be there to help me find my way. My Mom is a hero too – she taught me about being a mother and still to this day, just when I think that I have her figured out, she surprises me in a way that shows me we never stop becoming who we are. My sisters have saved me from the brink of emotional disaster and talked me off the edge of the cliff since the day I was born, and my brothers have always been there – a quiet, steady force that I trust to always be on my side. My daughters save me all the time too – they challenge me to stay young, to question some of the things that I thought I knew or believed, and they bring me incredible laughter…often times when needed most.

My point is this. Heroes don’t always ride in on their white horses to save the day and receive recognition for what they’ve done in a newspaper or on the 5:00 news. Sometimes the true heroes in our lives are much quieter…and much more important. They save us daily. My hero is on frequently-used speed dial and he rode in this morning in his blue Chevy pickup truck.  Thank you, John, for all that you do.

I hope you have at least one hero in your life – it might not be who you expect. Maybe you could even take a moment today to thank them for saving you. They probably don’t need you to say it, and like true heroes, will shrug it off with a nod and tip of their hat, but do it anyway. Tell them “thank you”.