Holding Out for a Hero

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“Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.” – Minor Myers, Jr.

This is a repost of writing I posted on 12/22/21. Heads up – you may have already read this.

The other day my 6-year-old daughter asked me “What is a hero?” As I stumbled through the words to describe someone who is admirable and inspires us to be better, I wondered if the idea of having heroes resonates as much in our world. Sometimes it feels like we know too much about our public figures these days to pick someone from that realm.

It also made me think of my personal hero, my dad.

It took me years to realize that he was my hero. It wasn’t until I’d traveled enough through life to have failures as well as successes that I started looking closer at my dad who was then in his 70’s. I wanted to try to identify what made him so unstoppably enthusiastic and delightful.

On first glance, it was easy to attribute his goodness to his career as a Presbyterian pastor for 40 years. Certainly that made him a person who worked hard to do good, but there was another equation that underscored who he was. Here’s what I’ve boiled it down to in three points, the number he always used for sermons:

He was dedicated to being useful. For him that meant rolling up his sleeves and pitching in where help was needed. If he came to my house for dinner, he would jump in to do the dishes before the dinner was even served. Sometimes I had to tell him to stand down if I wasn’t actually done with a pot. He’d laugh and look for something else. And that applied to plumbing, tiling, gardening, service projects, whatever he could find.

But he had the gift of making it a two way street because he’d ask for help. When he and my mom were building a cabin in the San Juan islands, he recruit people for “work parties” to clear the land or raise the foundation. Or if you were a member of his church, he’d recruit you for committees and service. And this back and forth made it feel not like his help was charity but that it was community because he wouldn’t hesitate to ask when he needed help.

He loved people. For him that usually meant listening. Although he was a preacher and a very good one, he thought that was a very small part of his job. He loved people for who they were and that included their imperfections too. If I ever asked him about people who he found frustrating, he’d shrug his shoulders and say something like “You never know all that’s going on with someone. We’re all weird and once you accept that, you can just love them anyway.”

He didn’t often give advice but when he did, there was no penalty for not listening. As the pastor who was performing my wedding to my now ex-husband, he sat us down for marriage counseling as he did with everyone he married. He very eloquently described what was wrong with us (my words, not his) because our personal and professional lives were too intertwined. We did nothing to correct this and he did a beautiful job of marrying us anyway.

He was obedient. That was his word for listening to the small voice of God within him. This was the part that most interested and confounded me. He was such a delightful person with many talents and a great attitude so what part did faith play in his life? It took me a long time to come up with an answer I could understand. And that was, he listened to where God led him, he abided by what he thought a Godly life was AND he lived life in partnership with God. He knew when things were above his pay grade and then he turned them over to God. That gave him an enormous amount of comfort and confidence.

My dad died suddenly in a bike accident at age 79. One of his friends eulogized him perfectly as “a battery on feet just looking for someone to jump start.” Fortunately in the years before he died, I’d started developing my own faith and the small voice of God within me led me to ask him questions about his life and record them. It was all part of my hero worship and a such a gift to be able to delve into this man from whom I’d inherited much of his way of looking at the world.

This is what was running through my mind as I answered my daughter about heroes and why we need them. They show us a little bit of the way so we can go further and faster. We stand on the shoulders of those that go before us. Recognizing heroes who resonate most with each of us is one great step forward in knowing what to study. They are part of our stories and give us connection and warmth to the inspiration we glean.

This is a companion post to my Wise & Shine piece today: Memoir Writing: Understanding the Why My memoir about my father is available on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith

45 thoughts on “Holding Out for a Hero”

  1. Pingback: Memoir Writing: Understanding the Why - Wise & Shine

  2. It’s very nice to read this post again. Your dad sounded like a fantastic person (and would’ve made a great human book). Upon reading this post again, it made me think about superheroes and their secret identities. The hero persona often gets the most attention it’s those moments in their secret identities, the daily human acts of kindness and of service, that also seem the most heroic. As your dad exemplified!

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    1. I love your point about daily human acts of kindness and service, Ab. Like you commenting on a post that you’ve read before. Thanks for being such an encouraging hero, my friend!

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  3. Beautiful tribute for a hero to aspire to Wynne. Thank you.

    I’m looking forward to one day meeting and spending Eternity with him, our Abba Father, and all His other children in perfect peace . . . together forever!

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  4. I love every bit of what you share about your dad, Wynne. I find his wisdom and kindness to be booster shots of love but this sentence really hit me this morning – even though you’ve written about his profound compassion before: “You never know all that’s going on with someone. We’re all weird and once you accept that, you can just love them anyway.” We’re all weird. Yup. Each in our own way. Remembering that paves the way for grace and understanding. xo! 🥰

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    1. Somehow it feels like you really know my dad, Vicki! I wish that you had met in person but you really get him — and me! Yes, we’re all weird. One of my favorite lines from him. Grace and understanding. Thanks, my friend! ❤ ❤ ❤

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  5. These are the stories we need to repeat, for they’re the antidote to the negativity going on in our world. When we hear stories of such people, we are lifted and inspired to do better.

    My daughter tells the stories to her kids about my father that I had told her, since he had died when she was almost a year old and had never gotten to know him. These are important family stories to tell and to pass down, for they give our kids and grandkids a sense of their history and ancestry, which can help them perhaps to identify things within themselves!

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    1. That’s so lovely about your daughter telling stories about her grandfather. You are right – that rich oral history is so important! Thanks for the lovely comment, Tamara!

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  6. The analogy of your father as “a battery on feet just looking for someone to jump start” made me tear. I know people like that–always eager to help–and, as Tamara suggests, the world needs more of those enthusiastic helpers to give the rest of the world hope.

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  8. Thaks Wynne. Those are really helpful characteristics of your dad to reflect on. There are many people I respect. It’s when I want to be like them in some way, they become my hero… and I realise there aren’t many of them!

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  14. It is an unconventional definition you provide,Wynne, different from the soldier-warrior-athlete model. It suggests that heros are designated as such because of what we see in them, whether they meet someone else’s definition. Thank you.

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    1. You have such a gift for putting my image in a bigger picture. Exactly – not the soldier – warrior- athlete. Right! Thank you, Dr. Stein!

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  16. I don’t know if I read this before, but loved again anyway. You should run this for Father’s Day too in two weeks! Some great lessons! “If I ever asked him about people who he found frustrating, he’d shrug his shoulders and say something like “You never know all that’s going on with someone. We’re all weird and once you accept that, you can just love them anyway.”’ I’m speechless, Wow! And then the focus on listening. Yes, I’m sure my guilty conscience is showing here, all the great lessons I’ve broken. Ha ha. Thanks for sharing Wynne, I’m sure it’s hard writing about your father, but what a great role model and lesson for others (like myself.)

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    1. Oh, thank you so much for your generous comment, Brian. One of the things that I learned most from my dad was that intent matters. I know your heart is in the right place and that counts for a lot! [complete aside but Sussudio is still going through my head…]

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  17. There is so, so much here that resonates with me, I don’t really know where to start. So I will simply say, then, that I am touched and glad to have found so much food for heart here. 💚

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