“You’re My Favorite Super Hero”

My son turned six in February.  He gave me a Christmas present this past Christmas, something he had picked out at the “Santa’s Workshop” at his school.  It was wrapped in a pre-printed holiday themed plastic baggie and stapled shut.  He had then taken a black Sharpie and written to: “Daddy” and from “James” in his child’s scrawl on the front.

I placed it under our tree.  It was the only package with my name on it waiting for me on Christmas morning, so I let the kids open their small pile of presents and then I picked up the gift from James and opened it under his expectant and excited gaze, tearing through the staple, but being careful not to damage his priceless handwriting.

It was a keychain.

A Batman keychain to be exact.  It had to the phrase “You’re My Favorite Super Hero” embossed on it.

I know we cherish every gift our children give us, but sometimes we open that package and we chuckle inwardly and wonder to ourselves, “What am I supposed to do with this?”  We never say this to them, of course, because when your child gives you a present it truly is the “thought” that counts and that thought is all that matters: that your child would pick something out to give to you.  That means something.

This gift, however, meant a little more.  “You’re My Favorite Super Hero.”  I thought about those words.  I truly believe they meant something to him when he picked it out, but they meant something a little deeper to my then 38-year-old mind.  My son truly does see me as his super hero.

That is an amazing thing, but also a heavy burden to carry.  Our children look up to us.  They look towards us to fill their basic needs from shelter to food to love and support.  We are their guardians.  We protect them from the slings and arrows of the world until they’re old enough and have learned enough to go off on their own.

I admittedly have never been a comic book fan.  My knowledge of super heroes isn’t very good, and most of it I’ve picked up from my son and my nephews.  I know enough, however.  I know that when someone looks to you as their hero, that’s a big thing.  It’s an important thing.

I hugged him and thanked him and I immediately got up and placed it on my key chain.

I don’t feel much like anyone’s hero these days.  I feel like an imperfect human being.  A person who sometimes feels too scared to get out of bed.  A person who feels overwhelmed.  I am not impervious to pain (though I wish I was) nor can I bend a bar of steel with my bare hands (and don’t even ask about leaping over a building in a single bound).

When I look at myself in the mirror I do not see a hero.  I just see a man trying to do the best he can, but maybe that is what makes me a hero.  Maybe I’m a “hero” because I am flawed and I am scared and I do feel pain, but I get up and I get going every single day.

I don’t know.  Life is too complex and I think too much.  I just know that there is a little boy who sees me as his hero.  He doesn’t see me the way I see me.  He sees his dad.  He sees the guy he wants to grow up to be (I hope).  He sees strength and stability and safety amidst a world he doesn’t understand.  He sees a guy who can chase away the monsters under the bed…the guy who can hug him and make him believe everything will be alright…and I feel a little stronger because of that.  It gives me the strength to get through another day because I know my little boy needs his super hero just as much as I need him.