Would they be your best friend if they weren't?

Thursday 8/27/26

I've spent the last few hours working more on "Hero of Mine." Hopefully I'm finally done. Going to step back for a while and tend to some other things, after I run some stairs first, then I'll revisit the story later today or tomorrow. I work on things as long as I do because I know how good they are and I don't want that to be diminished the tiniest amount. Their quality obligates me to do my absolute best by them. This is the first page plus a little bit more of the story, which I think shows just why I feel that sense of obligation.

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What is a hero?

Do you know?

Have you ever tried to figure it out exactly?

I don’t mean used the word to describe your favorite football player or a character with a mask from a movie.

I mean understood for real. So that you’d be able to tell someone. And if that other person didn’t know before—in a way that they could share—they would after.                    

Are your parents heroes? Your brother? The nurse when you were in the hospital? That girl who told those bullies to knock it off while everyone else was laughing at the boy they were picking on?

Do you think your best friend is a hero? Would they be your best friend if they weren’t? Or your grandmother’s neighbor who lives alone and usually looks sad but came over to shovel her walkway and check if she needed anything after that big snowstorm?

Is your teacher a hero? The soldier who visited your school? That lady you read about from long ago who remained true to herself no matter the awful things anyone said or did to her?

How about the mom who lost her beautiful girl and later rallied the town around the family whose own precious little one got the scariest kind of sick?

Or that person you’d never seen until that moment who asked if you were okay as they looked at you with a soft smile that was meant to show they cared on what you thought was the worst day of your life?