Who Is My Hero?

Who is a hero? Someone who inspires us to go beyond our physical, emotional and mental capabilities to achieve something that would be beyond us in normal circumstances or someone who achieves that something beyond the ordinary within the limits of his/her own limited capabilities?

I could cite a number of great names who would fall into either category, but to me heroes are everyday people, like you and me, who in that one moment of asking do something that is not so everyday. That shriveled woman who lives on the road by my home, just because she has a mentally challenged son who refuses to go home or that successful doctor who gave up a lucrative practice to serve the poor in a remote village are heroes in their own ways and in my eyes.

To me a hero has to be identifiable, not so larger than life that he/she is impossible to emulate in full. Small deeds make great men and women and are reachable, achievable.

My own deceased mother, a doctor of great repute, who donated her blood for patients, who prayed to God to cure those who were very ill, who could work without consideration of hours when lives were at stake, is my most identifiable, closest hero. She died young and I console myself with the fact that those who the Gods love best are called away early. But I believe her life's work was done. She had gone beyond the confines of just being a doctor to being a true humanist whose sense of responsibility and care extended to all those who touched her orbit. To be even one tenth of her, would make me a hero in my own eyes.