What Makes a Hero?

What makes a hero? Is it guts? Physical strength? Fighting a battle that can't be won? For many in today's society, a hero may simply be someone who is picked on, ridiculed, and scorned. Are there requirements somewhere that dictate whether someone will become a hero or simply a person of high integrity?

I have only lived for forty seven years and I have not travelled the world. I look up to many leaders and attempt to emulate the qualities I feel are important. I was shocked last fall to hear of the death of a world wonder..Steve Irwin. Some called him crazy. Some even said he was stupid. I believe he was pasionate about somethng he believed in so strongly that he flirted with death on a daily basis. We all expected him to die one day..due to the volatile relationship he had with nature's fiercest creatures but what no one suspected, or ever imagined, was that a mere innocent creature would be the cause of his sudden death.

The surprise travelled around the globe quickly, and the masses mourned. Out of the grief and sorrow of losing this exuberant and hyper-active man, we became witness to the birth of a new hero. A seven-year old wonder, little Bindi Irwin. The bravery she showed the world will be a memory I will never forget. This little seven year old girl's, given at the Memorial Service held in the Australia Zoo was spoken without falter, watching her little finger draw lines on the paper so she would not lose her place was heart breaking but bueatiful. She defined bravery of the highest purity. Bravery for her mother. Bravery for the friends and parents of her father. Bravery for the world and it's animals.

What an inspiration! A mere child, showing such grace and strength without any coaching or purpose other than to honor her father's memory. What the world needs is to hear more stories from the children that we dont hear about, that we dont see or even think about. What Bindi can do for children around the world is truly heroic. We who are adults would do well to learn from them.The passion, purity and honesty would heal our wounds and encourage us all to seek peace and understanding. It dosent matter that her father "courted death", Steve Irwin loved the fierce and gentle creatures equally, and wished to spread his passion and concern for our polluted world for all nations, races, and geographies.

What Bindi Irwin has done,and is doing, will continue the legacy of her father and all of the "Wildlife Warriors" who fight for our planet and all the animals, as the great James Herriot called, " All Creatures Great and Small". Heroism is facing bullets to be sure. Heroism is about fighting batttles against all odds. But I have found that heroism is also about fighting pain. Living with heartache is a battle that can never be one, but it can be conquered. What greater honor can we give to someone, than to carry on their fight, their passion, their beliefs, even though we want to lay down and give up, and perhaps, sucumb to a broken heart?