My husband cooks for and serves the low income and homeless every Friday morning. The non-profit he volunteers for is currently looking to fill the Volunteer Coordinator position so my husband has helped out by doing a few more duties. One of the things he has been doing lately is leading the volunteers in a discussion (like a short meditation) during the time in between cooking and serving the food.

Yesterday the pastor was going to talk about heroes so he asked my husband to ask everyone who their hero was/is. Because my husband was the one directing the discussion, he was the first one to say who his hero is, and while we were sitting there having lunch, he told me that when he thought about his hero, he realized it is me.

In a restaurant crowed with people, an avocado, tomato, grilled cheese sandwich in front of me, tears streamed down my face as my husband told me why I am his hero. “Every day, every single day, you get up and you fight. You have to fight to overcome so much. You fight and you write, and you make a difference. I can’t imagine how hard it is. You are my hero, and I realized it for the first time today.”

I can’t tell you what it is like for the person you love most in the world to tell you that they think of you not only as a hero, but as their hero.

This girl from a town of five thousand people, this girl from a poor family, this woman with paranoid schizophrenia, yes her, her, her…she is someone’s hero.

I don’t think I am anyone special, and I don’t think I do anything special. I simply live, but now I know that someone who watches me closely, who knows most of my actions, who knows my character intimately, thinks I am a heroine.

If it is possible for me, then it is possible for you. You may be a hero to someone and not even know it yet. What do we need to do? We need to keep on keeping on – we need to push forward. We need to try our best. We need to get back up when we fall. We need to put our former episodes behind us. We need to hope for a brighter future. We need to see beauty in our lives and in our days. We need to meet the challenge of being mentally ill every day, and try to have a warrior’s spirit. We need to take the next step. We need to keep moving past our limitations. We need to smile and hold the thought in our heart that people are looking to us, learning from us, gaining courage from us, and we may be inspiring someone to do something great that changes the world, and we may be changing the world ourselves. Go heroes! Go!