So I wrote a long entry and decided it was too much to make public. Hmmm... Well, I guess that’s just the way it goes. :)

I got to thinking about heroes today. Someone recently told me that I am their hero (or one of them or something like that), and that got me thinking. First of all, me - anyone's hero? Come on, that's like, well, wrong. Or something. How can I be someone's hero? I'm not exactly the poster child of how to live a life.

So then I started thinking about who my heroes in life have been. Not the astronauts or movie stars or musicians that no one ever meets. I mean more like people who I knew that were really heroes to me. I realize its a pretty short list. There's Jack Gehre, my high school geometry teacher, who not only made math fun but who also took me in as a foster kid for a while when I was at my lowest. My best friend's parents for the same reason. My mom, for making it through the crap she went through and for making a better life for herself despite the odds. My fifth grade teacher, because she had a really cool dog and because she really, really cared.

And then there's my eighth grade English teacher, who everyone thought was a senile old lady. I remember Ray Pacheco threw a big spit wad the size of a baseball that splattered on the blackboard like a foot from her head while she was writing an assignment, and barely glanced at it and just kept right on talking and writing while that thing oozed down the board. When I went back to visit her before I graduated from high school. she told me all the stories that we thought she never noticed in the first place, let alone remembered. And man, she was far from senile. She was smarter than any of us.

My 9th grade English teacher - He was tough and cared a lot, and man could he teach like it mattered. And Mr. Cotter, my 8th and 9th grade science teacher, who made fun of me (in a nice enough way) every day in the hallway and let me make fun of him right back, always with a big grin on his face. He was so funny and always watched out for the kids who needed it. He died a few years ago of a heart attack. I wish I could tell him thank you. But from that smile I think he knew. You could tell it, he knew.

I dropped by the Gehre's house, my one-time foster home for a short while, once a couple of years ago when I was back in my home town, because I wanted to see them and especially to tell them thank you. No one was home. Weird thing is, for some reason, I was uncomfortable going there. Why is that? Why was it so strange for me to go back and tell them thank you? I felt kind of like maybe my going back would be an inconvenience to them, I think. Why have I not tried since? I hope I haven't missed my chance, like I did with Mr. Cotter.

Heroes are important. I bet those people don't know they are my heroes. I bet they'd be surprised. Maybe even a little uncomfortable with it. Maybe I can learn something from that, too.

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