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LadyEarth, you are so beautiful and loving with your words. Wow what a wonderful lady to walk into your life when you were young!

To all of you, your post's touched my heart, and I am sure they did all who read them. I was interested to see most of the heroes were close to you.
Hugs, to all who shared :)

The hospital complex had a building for the criminally insane. These were the only patients who did not have "grounds" privileges after she became director of nursing. She was so wonderful. We used to spend hours talking and playing all kinds of games. She was the best Scrabble player I ever knew. Every once in awhile, I would score higher than she did. When that happened, we always had to play another game, no mater how late it was!

I love scrabble! I belong to a scrabble internet club. I am a step mother/grandmother and have a step mother. I know I love her very much. And I have some very special relationships with my "step" grandchildren.

My hero was a man of 40 years. He had cerebral palsy and spent his life in a wheel chair. He was speech impaired and had only one usable clumsy hand but he held a full time job, was married and had a teenage daughter. He would run his electric wheelchair on the road and I mentioned that it was not safe for him to do that. He said very slowly, "Don't take that from me." With those few words he taught me what freedom is."

"Don't take that from me."

Isn't it amazing that soooo many others, 'think', that they know, soooo much more, what is good for you, and are perfectly willing, if fact, insistant upon, forcing it down your throat, 'for your own good'?!
You are to be commended for your 'non-insistance'! Bless you! You DO INDEED now understand what REAL FREEDOM is.

Still not sweatin' the small stuff, and it's ALL small stuff, I AM, and remain...WW

I have been trying to catch up on the posts here, still trying to move our business and work full time at my job. And take care of my many critters - a full time job in itself. This question came at the same time my Father decided to not have another surgery - he's decided enough is enough. So while I have other heros, he is formost in my thoughts thses days. And moving / cleaning is very theraputic for all the emotions his decision has brought forth. I understand, and respect his decision, but he is my last parent/grandparent - and I'm not ready for him to go.
When I was growing up in Northern California every year we had a "fire season", and would watch the smoke come over the mountains to our town, ash settling over everything. Usually we never saw the flames, but I remember 1 year was very differant. We saw the flames heading down the mountains towards town.
My Father was gone, I thought to work, and my Mother had packed the car getting ready to evacuate. I remember trying to console her, that the firefighters would get the fire out in time before it got to town. She snapped at me! Hurt, I went and hid in my room.
It wasn't until my Father came home, smelling of smoke and fuel, covered in soot, that I understood her worry. The construction equipment fighting the fires needed fuel, obviously a dangerous job driving a fuel truck through the fires, and it was my father driving that truck. They had asked for a volunteer, and he stepped up.
He has done that all his life too - never shirked from what was needed to be done.
We haven't always agreed, had our 'moments". but I was always, and will be, a Daddy's girl.
Even when he forgot my birthday this year and said, well, I remembered the first 100 so give me a break ! ( on my 50th ).
Did I mention he's a real smart ass sometimes?

I don't have many heroes, but there are a few that could fall into that classification.

There is Quentin Crisp. His entire life he was true to himself as a gay man with a tendency towards the feminine. Now being an out gay man was no easy road in the 30's and 40's. My favorite story about him was when WWII began. He reported to sign up for military conscription. He had beautifully died long red hair and a lovely appropriately matching set of red fingernails.

He was asked, are you a sexual pervert? He responded yes, but his country was at war and he could serve. His willingness to be true to himself has always impressed me beyond words.

Abigail Adams, who though without political power as a woman, used her mind, heart, intellect and wit to help form the very nature of our American Democracy through gentle persuasion and the open discussion of ideas.

Sojourner Truth and I can think no one was ever named more appropriately. In a time when as a woman and as a black person she had no power at all, and yet her words simple and straight forward spoke directly to a call for social justice and equality. Her speech at the 1853 Akron, Ohio's women's conference still resonates today. Here is what she said:

"Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."

Other heroes include:

Author/poet/AIDS activist Paul Monette. His most famous line that resonates for me is "Go without hate, but not without rage. Heal the world."

Ruth in the Bible for her self truth and willingness to risk it all.

Dorothy Parker: Cynic, abrasive, brash, but as a woman writer in a world of men, she held her own and with panache.

Fred Rogers is my hero. When my daughter was a toddler, we were watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood together one morning. Mr. Rogers turned to the camera and said, "I like you just the way you are." I began to weep and explained to Liz that Daddy had needed to hear Mr. Rogers say those words. Years later, I wrote Mr. Rogers telling him of the deep healing his words had offered me and how grateful I am for his great love of children and families. He actually wrote back and told me that my capacity to grow is a wonderful quality and a gift for others in my life.
I told him how wonderful he was and he, in turn, reflected the same sentiment back to me. I really admire his work on PBS and his dedication to healthy human behavior. I am familiar with how much people make fun of Fred Rogers and my love for him as a marvelous human being is unaltered by this awareness. I am so glad I wrote to him and listened to his wisdom over the years.