{"id":3940,"date":"2015-09-23T12:48:44","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T19:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3940"},"modified":"2015-09-23T12:48:44","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T19:48:44","slug":"what-is-a-hero-glacier-bay-alaska-09112015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3940","title":{"rendered":"What Is a Hero? \u2013 Glacier Bay, Alaska \u2013 [09\/11\/2015]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hero\"<\/a>Little did she know she\u2019d kissed a hero
\nThough he\u2019d always been an angel in her eyes
\nPutting others first its true
\nThat\u2019s what heroes always do
\nAnd now he doesn\u2019t need a pair of wings to fly<\/em><\/p>\n

14 years later it\u2019s still not mine to write about; but at the same time, once it\u2019s been put back in front of my eyes, I can\u2019t not say anything.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that it was fourteen years ago. It feels like yesterday. The day of infamy for a new generation, the day the world shook and changed and for a small stretch of time, we were<\/em> all Americans \u2013 even me, who stands as one of the proudest Canadians of them all.<\/p>\n

Like the song says \u2013 in a New York Minute, everything changed. The world changed, preconceptions fell to pieces like shattered glass and the innocence of most of North America broke all over again.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve come a long way since then\u2026or have we? Have we really<\/em>?<\/p>\n

The bloodshed has not stopped, the threats still loom and the world still lives in a constant state of looking over our shoulders, perhaps even more so than before.<\/p>\n

We all have our ways that we remember today; I\u2019m ashamed to say that this morning \u2013 for the first time in years \u2013 I forgot. I knew that something felt off in the air, something felt unsettled, disjointed, not quite put together properly. I was tense and twitchy and couldn\u2019t seem to settle down; but I didn\u2019t remember the date, not even when I typed it on the screen. It wasn\u2019t until Amras came by the office looking for the quote I usually use to commemorate today that I drew in a breath and realized what it was I\u2019d forgotten. Perhaps that\u2019s a good thing, perhaps we should let it become just another day on the calendar, but that doesn\u2019t seem right, any more than erasing Armistice Day from our collective minds and hearts would be right.<\/p>\n

But just because we are so good at remembering does not mean that we are the greatest at honoring.<\/p>\n

Those who were on those planes, who gave everything they had to stop the course of disaster \u2013 whether they succeeded or not \u2013 should not have died for nothing. Out of the smoldering embers of tragedy we were granted the chance to build something united and beautiful \u2013 but we didn\u2019t cling to it, we didn\u2019t take it. When the dust settled, we returned to the way things were, to a state of \u2018us vs. them\u2019, our lives and been changed, our innocence broken, but instead of remaining banded together and standing strong, we fell back to our comfort zones\u2026resorting to more retaliation, more blood, more tragedy. We are \u2013 even now \u2013 caught in the midst of an international blood feud, and I sometimes wonder if we will ever find balance again.<\/p>\n

They killed my friends!
\nYes, so now you\u2019re going to kill them, and then someone else will kill you, and on and on it will go until no one even remembers who [your friends] were, that\u2019s how blood feuds work. Congratulations. ~ Polgara the Sorceress<\/em><\/p>\n

So how do we combat a tide that\u2019s so strong? How do you fight fear? How do you honor<\/em> heroes not just remember them or avenge them?<\/p>\n

By being a hero yourself.<\/p>\n

Remember that heroism does not mean saving thousands of lives on a plane, it does not mean throwing yourself in front of a moving truck to save a child, it doesn\u2019t have to be that big<\/em>; heroism is in the little things. Donating to the foodbank after a disaster, being a hospital volunteer, giving blood, reading to the kids at the library; even something as small as giving a smile to a stranger on the street, tossing a coin into someone\u2019s change jar. A million little things can make you a hero. If there is one thing that this day fourteen years ago should have taught us, it\u2019s that heroism is not just in the big incredible things that make the news, but in the small things that follow afterwards. In the incredible way the human race can reach for the light in the depths of the dark.<\/p>\n

Help<\/em> each other. Care<\/em> for each other. Share each other\u2019s joys as well as each other\u2019s miseries. Hold each other up instead of bringing each other down. Don\u2019t just remember that people died, don\u2019t remember the thirst for vengeance, remember the good<\/em>. Let that be what you carry with you, let that be what you pass on.<\/p>\n

We cannot predict the future, but we can realize that peace will only come when the world as a whole wants it so very much that they will stand for nothing else. In the meantime, remember how quickly things can change, remember how easily the universe can shift, and that someone who is just a normal every day person can get up one morning and become a hero.<\/p>\n

Remember where you were, remember what happened\u2026and remember that it\u2019s not always the big things that change the world\u2026the small, insignificant acts of individuals, can change the course of history, if we would just let them.<\/p>\n

Be safe everyone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Little did she know she\u2019d kissed a hero Though he\u2019d always been an angel in her eyes Putting others first its true That\u2019s what heroes always do And now he doesn\u2019t need a pair of wings to fly 14 years … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,80,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska","category-below-the-waterline","category-northern-exposure-2015","category-reflections-below-the-waterline"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-11y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3954,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions\/3954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}