Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  The sound of the heart rate monitor lures me out of my sleep.  The blood pressure cuff on my left arm squeezes uncomfortably in my dazed state.  Out of the corner of my eye I see the shadow of a man, slumped over in a chair.  I let out a quiet sigh as I try to turn to my other side.  I see his eyelids flutter open and focus on me.  His voice calms me, reassuring me that everything will be okay.  I fall asleep again knowing that he is right by my side.

            I wake to the noise of quiet voices.  The surgeon from last night is apologizing, in broken English, for being rude.  My dad doesn’t blame him.  He knows why the doctors want to take me in to surgery.  They say I have a Grade II laceration in my spleen.  I don’t know what that means.  All I know is that I am to stay in the hospital bed as much as possible.  My mom and my sister walk in with concerns masked with smiles.  I can tell that they have just eaten; my sister has breadcrumbs on her shirt.  I’m not allowed to eat yet.  When my sister, Allison, sits next to me, we start to play games on my mom’s iPad.  It’s on silent so I don’t disturb the other patients in the massive hospital room but in the background, behind my sister’s voice, I can hear the voices that belong to the characters in Captain America.  The scenes are playing out in my head as I hear “The first of many.  Cut off one head…two more shall take its place.”  This entertains my sister and me for too long.  Shortly after we’ve taken on this challenge, a nurse comes to draw more of my blood.  This is the ninth time in the past thirty-six hours.  It pinches at first, as usual, but the pain subsides quickly.  While she does this, my dad explains what is going on.  He tells me that when I fell off my mountain bike, I ruptured my spleen.  When we arrived in the emergency room a few days earlier, the surgeons wanted to remove my spleen.  My dad disagreed wholeheartedly.  He promised the surgeons that I didn’t need surgery and he was going to prove it by monitoring me constantly.  As I listen to him tell the story, I realize that my dad gave up his sleep so he could make sure he was justified in his actions.  As it turns out, I don’t need surgery.  Later on in the afternoon, after the Captain America movie finished up, my dad arranges flight transportation to take me to a hospital in Germany tomorrow afternoon.  I am excited to get out of this Croatian hospital but I realize that I am still very lucky to be in the situation I am in, compared to the other kids who shared the room with me.  I try to fall asleep but every time I get close, the blood pressure cuff squeezes my arm and brings me back into reality.  I just want the pain in my side to go away, but sleep is not that kind to me.  My dad knows I can’t sleep, so he begins to tell me stories about how different parts of the body function, like white blood cells or the muscular system.  His stories distract me enough to ignore the band around my arm and I slowly drift off to sleep.

My dad is the hero of this story.  He stood up for me and for what he believed in one hundred percent of the way.  He did this despite the general surgeons that told him he was wrong and was making a mistake.  His actions are a huge reminder to me that there are so many good people in the world who are willing to stand up for themselves even when the rest of society is pushing their beliefs down. 

There are different types of heroes but they all have at least one thing is common: they know what is right or wrong and they fight for it, even when the rest of society tells them that what they believe is misguided or different.

Heroes have a significant part in culture because they can be ordinary people with extraordinary characters.  Heroes have existed throughout history and literature.  One of the most obvious examples of this heroism is Beowulf.  Beowulf at first wants fame, but as he grows older, he learns that he needs to raise up against the monsters to protect his people.  He risked his life to save the lives of others he knew were more valuable.  That to me is amazing, to realize that anyone has the ability to change the world by accepting that another’s life is more important than his own.  A similar idea was put into action by the many people who risked their lives and their families to protect a complete stranger in World War II.  They risked everything they had to stand up for their belief that everyone is equal, that there is no supreme race.  I feel that these sacrifices are even harder to make when there is something to lose, like a family.  But because these people made such great sacrifices, they became heroes, especially to the people they saved.  There are so many people and so many characters that are willing to risk everything.

I read an article last year about the plane that crashed into the Potomac River in 1982.  There was a man in that plane who was just as helpless as the other people who went down with him.  However, he decided to help.  When the air rescue came, he passed their lifelines to other passengers that were on the plane.  At this moment, when he was facing death, he made the heroic decision to help others.  In our society, our lives are valued, we are taught to stay safe and also worry for our own safety.  But this man,

although he may have been concerned with his own safety, helped others.  He went against all social norms and saved people, perhaps because he felt that their lives were more important to save. 
That passenger was the only passenger to die from drowning in that crash.  His selflessness emphasizes the people in the world with strong characters.  They are able to face danger, and even death, and stand up against it and they won’t go down without a fight.  This selflessness and this strength reminds me of the words of William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus”:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

            Henley describes how people control their fate, we can choose to watch from the sidelines or we can choose to stand up and fight for what is right.  I consider this action as one of the many definitions of a hero.

            My dad’s actions were small in comparison to others’, like the people who helped Jews during the Holocaust or the Man in the Water, but they left a huge impact on me.  Which brings me to the question, how do these people, these heroes, think for themselves in a society where others tell them what to believe?  How are they able to put aside all their differences and risk everything they have for another person, sometimes a complete stranger?