I shouldn’t…and yet…I must

On his website, John Byrne posted the following, which has gotten some notice throughout the internet:

“I have noticed that people have begun referring to
Christopher Reeve as a “hero”. I do not wish to take
away one iota of the courage he must have needed
not to wake up screaming every single day, but the
hard truth is there was nothing “heroic” in what
happened to him, or how he dealt with it. In fact, as
far as how he dealt with it, he didn’t even have a
choice. We could imagine he spent every hour of
every day (when not in front of the cameras) begging
family members to simply kill him and get it over with
— but none of them did, so he had no choice but to
deal with each day as it came.

Heroism, I believe, involves choice.”

John believes wrong.

“Heroism” is a word involving shadings. It has different meanings to different people under different circumstances, as do other words such as “love”…or “hate”…or…oh, I dunno…”prìçk.”

John F. Kennedy, when called a hero for saving his fellow crewmembers after the PT 109 was sunk, dismissed the term. “A hero? For what? Having my ship blown out from under me?” Yet hero he was called, and hero he was, for heroism–like art and beauty–are in the eye of the beholder, and it may not be easily defined, but we know it when we see it. To a Catholic, Mother Teresa is heroic because of her unceasing efforts to aid the needy. To Boston Red Sox fans, Curt Schilling is a hero for pitching through an injury that would have crippled someone else. To a child, his hero might be his dad or mom who goes out, earns a living, feeds and clothes the family and creates a safe haven in a threatening world. And who are we to say that any of them are wrong?

“Involves choice?” By that criteria, any draftee from World War I or II or Korea or Vietnam…they can’t be considered a hero under any circumstance because they had no choice about being there. By that criteria, there’s no such thing as a hero policeman or a hero fireman, because they’re just doing their salaried job. Die in the line of duty? Well, Jack, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it. Sucks to be you.

How dare anyone be so dismissive of Chris Reeve’s heroism. Yes, he had no choice but to deal with each day as it came, but it was HOW he dealt with it that was heroic. How easy it would have been for him to simply give in to despair. To make no effort beyond what was minimally required to keep functioning. For that matter, how easy it would have been for him to become a recluse. Actors, after all, have egos. Monumental, towering egos. Can it possibly have been easy for the former “Superman” to allow the public to see him immobilized, helpless, a crippled shadow of what he once was? I’m thinking not. I’m thinking that he had a lot to overcome, both physically and emotionally, just to put himself out there again and again.

Of course, it would be easy to say that his doing so was selfish. After all, the result of his money raising, awareness raising endeavors would ultimately be self-serving. If his efforts resulted in a cure, he could walk once again, and thus would benefit personally. Does that diminish his heroism? No. Not at all.

Because you’ll find that some of the greatest heroes in history did not, in fact, have a choice. Instead they were just guys who had their back against the wall and were trying to fight their way out of a bad situation so they could live to fight another day. They were the ones who seized a predicament and said, “I have no choice. I have to change this, I have to overcome this, because failure to do so is not an option.”

Heroes are what uplift people. Inspire them. Make them aware that there are ineffable qualities and capacities for human achievement that they had never considered before. Heroism is fulfilled capacity for greatness. And in that, Chris Reeve is indisputably, for all time, a hero.

PAD