Heroes

Tonight I watched about 90 minutes of the Heroes marathon on CNN. Some of the stories were close to being tear jerker events. Other stories were kind of that, "Aww. That's nice."

But through the course of the evening I quickly came to the conclusion that there were two types of heroes. There were the heroes that dedicated their lives to heroic acts. One guy went to Kenya and established a way to feed hungry school children so that they could stay in school. He managed to get the drop out rate down from 50% to less than 1%. Another person has spent several years developing a system of letter recognition that involved using the keys on the piano. She developed this program to help out her cousin who has autism. The last guy I remember was working to save gorillas in Rwanda.

Then there were the people that were heroes for just one day. There was the story from Virgina Tech student that barricaded a door that saved the lives of several of his classmates. The guy who rescued a guy having a seizure from getting hit by a new york subway train. The boy who saved his mom from a fire. And so on and so forth.

It got me thinking about what type of hero I'd want to be if I was ever a hero to anyone. I've decided I would rather be the type of hero that is a hero for a day. I don't think I have the dedication in my life to rescue thousands, but I bet I could rescue one person. I think I would be just fine, though, jumping in on a moment's notice to do something great.

Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, if you want to be a hero for just one child, here's an idea.