My Hero

An amazing thing happened to me last night. I witnessed my son (6 yrs old) growing to be a man. Let me explain.

Around 3:30 this morning I was awakened by footsteps moving around my house. They were not the kind of footsteps that startled me; instead they were footsteps that seemed familiar (amazing to me how our body and subconscious knows things like that). I knew, from the time I awoke, that it was my son that was moving around the upstairs. It seemed that the steps were moving with quickness and meaning. Suddenly, I heard him begin to run (thump, thump, thump) down the stairs. Within seconds he had made a sweep of the floor (we don’t live in a big home, so it doesn’t take long…but he was still flying) and was back at the side of our bed.

“Mommy……Mommy”, he said in a frantic whisper.

“Yes baby?”

“I can’t find Addi (my four year old), and I had a bad dream that something happened to her.”

I looked over to him and asked him to get in our bed. He crawled in and settled between his mother and me. I looked at him and whispered in his ear, “She is alright big man, just go back to sleep.” I gave him a few second, but he never closed his eyes. He laid there with fear on his face.

I pulled the covers back and placed my feet on the floor.

“Daddy, where are you going?”

“I’m going to go make sure Addi is alright.”

“Thank you Daddy”

I walked into their room to find my third born resting peacefully in her bed. I returned to a young man waiting for my words like it was Christmas Eve.

“She is in bed and alright big guy.”

“Alright Daddy”, and he fell fast asleep.

What touches my heart even at this moment, was the love that he was showing for his baby sister. This is the same guy that will not go upstairs by himself to get in the bath tub, but when it came to the safety of his sister…he was willing to brave every room and every corner of our house with darkness all around him. With the sound of his steps, I could feel the determination that he had to find his sister and save her from whatever horror his imagination had produced in his dream. Remember when you were a child, how all the shadows of the dark and monsters in our heads would paralyze us and make us pull the cover over our heads? Not my son, he awakens with a fear that something bad had happened to his sister and arose with all the strength he could build to save her.

He is my hero.