My Three Heroes

Bursting with pride and gratitude.

It’s great to have a hero. I have three! My heroes are not paper heroes but the real thing—as is, with all faults.

There’s Elizabeth, who captured my heart many years ago. I’m a Del Rio boy, she a more sophisticated citizen of the world. One summer, against my wishes (this was before we were married) she and a friend hitchhiked around Europe all summer. She returned just as sorority rush started, and, because of sorority rules, obeyed silence, totally ignoring me until weeklong rush was over. I was angry, hurt and I never wanted to see her again. We got “pinned” that night, a step before engagement.

When she retired from serving at Viva Bookstore for many years, she lamented she was afraid she would end up lying in bed eating bonbons. Fat chance! This woman, who had no experience in publishing, nor any model to follow, formed a publishing company that publishes beautiful soul-filled books. Her ministry to her authors and through publishing books is awesome.

Another personal hero is Charlie, our older son. He went to Macalester College in Minnesota so he could swim and play water polo, met lovely Sarah and never came back, except to visit. Of all the seven grandsons, Charlie is more like his grandfather. He laughs at his own jokes, like Virgil did. You could not have a more loyal friend than Charlie or Virgil. Charlie has labored tirelessly as a swimming coach and as a high school teacher for 30 plus years, sometimes with three jobs, to provide for his family, just as my father labored selflessly for his family. Charlie’s teaching job is and has been in a “last chance” high school. Two nights a week he teaches in a Minnesota jail.

I have to be more careful in what I say about my third hero, our younger son, Patrick, the shyest, most private member of our family. Patrick is passionate (I wonder where he got that) and cares deeply about the fate of the world—all the world and what and who make up the world. I remember in the ‘80’s Patrick was concerned about the Bomb. He came home one day and told me he was no longer worried. He learned in a physics class matter is not destroyed, only changed in form—solid/liquid/gas. A bomb can’t destroy the earth.

Patrick moved to New York City a year or so after graduation from college and has made it on his own as a computer programer, which, in and of itself, is quite an accomplishment.  In many ways, Patrick is a citizen of the world. The world would be fortunate to have more like him. He is generous, lives a simple life with few possessions but a life full of purpose and meaning.

I am the most fortunate of men.  I have had the privilege of living this life for all these years with Elizabeth, Charlie and Patrick.