Me: "Will, don't you want to be a hero?"
Will: "No"
Me: "Oh, well, why not?"
Will: "Because I already am a hero Mom."
I am beginning this blog because I am the mom of two boys and am surrounded by all things male. The joke is on me really. You see I was terrified of boys my entire life. I grew up with two sisters and my Dad was the odd man out, we worshipped him. He was the rock in our lives and the steadfast hero of my world.
Compared to him all 'boys' were weird, strange and picked and ate their boogers. That really is what I grew up thinking. Oh I could pretend that I was comfortable, but as my 11 year old self could tell you, I was always slightly shaky and wanted to throw up a little every time I spoke to a boy.
I remember when a boy from school came over to play when I was very young and all he was really interested in were my older sisters legos. I lied and told him they were mine, that was the first time I remember knowing there was a huge difference between girls and boys.
Looking back I just have to laugh. I am completely and utterly comfortable now. I may not completely understand everything all the time, or most of the time, but I am comfortable because this is me. This is life. This is the life that was given to me and it is a true gift.
It is hard for me to understand them but I can love them and love them well.
My husband recently told me that if boys have a mission to accomplish they will feel satisfied. This is interesting to me because as a girl (yes even a 34 year old woman), I could probably sit and color for hours with no particular reason or goal, just to enjoy each stroke of color and the peace and calm of the act of coloring is satisfaction enough.
I have watched my boys build many a lego tower, one boy to accomplish an incredible masterpiece for his lego men and the other boy to tear it down and the crashing accomplishes his goal of destruction.
The definition of hero is a character who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good of all humanity.
This is what Will considers himself. A person that displays courage in the face of danger. This is beautiful to me, that he already sees himself this way. No one has ever told him this. He believes it with every stick he throws and every fort he builds, with every baseball he hits and every tree he climbs. He is a hero. In his little world of forts made from sticks, he is the courageous one that will conquer the danger that ensues.
