When someone seems truly incredible to us, they tend to live in our memory as someone unlike anyone else we have known in that category; an incredible teacher, an incredible ballplayer, an incredible artist. We all hope to grow up like someone we feel is truly incredible at how he performs his roll. Sometimes we find out who he is outside of the career costume, if we have the privilege to peek. Most times we have no opportunity to see the private side of a sports hero, a great artist, a great ballplayer. Sometimes we do not want to know the hero's private side as it may tarnish the special gift of adoration given in the example of his glory.
Husbands and fathers however are the greatest heroes of all. They give us the experience of observing how to love people at large, and how to love a family. In watching them from within the intimacy of our relationship, we learn how to make judgements through a perspective that is uniquely their own. They share the wisdom of managing in the good times and the hard times, both settings being equally valuable. They share who they are as a life hero in their glory roles, but often they teach the same righteous lessons on the back porch or in the work shed. We come to learn lessons that are not taught in lectures, but come across clearly by our observations as we watch them live day by day, and we develop our own protocols modeled on their example. They make decisions for themselves and for us that evolve out of intricate analyses, and sometimes unexplained logic plucked from their own life experience. They have also been praised to know the value of a hunch, which is a harder lesson to teach, and sometimes not as insightful until we reach the point of raising our own family or taking a spouse.
After the bride goes on about the business of being a wife and little babies reach their individual adulthood, the grounding provided by this life hero continues to be the strength relied upon for all time, the ever strong instinct, the way it was since the day you married him, or when you were little and he carried you. A collection of individual memories is his gift to us forever, priceless recollections of resilience, spontaneity of spirit, struggles and victories, the gentle smile, his special kiss, the promises he made to us and those around him. When his unique life and our relationships with him are celebrated, how well we realize the enrichment acquired because we spent time in knowing such an incredible man.
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