The Right Role Model

It was so much easier when I was younger to pick heroes or role models. Hockey players, actors, rock stars and even cartoon super heroes like Spiderman, were at one time or another, a really big deal for me. As I have gotten older, without really maturing, I have had a harder time seeing public figures as role models. The more I have aged, the more I began to see the flaws in the people I may have considered as someone to look up to. In this high speed internet frenzy we live in there are very few secrets. Role models need to have their secrets.

A few years ago I began to look around for a fresh set of role models, because I reached a point where I really needed some new ones. The lack of quality role models of the high profile variety was staggering. As I opened my mind to potential role models, including some people who lived close to home, I was blown away. I’d like to share with you some of what I saw.

My first proposal is from a demographic I have labelled “the-got-back-uppers”. It is easy to look at someone who seems to have had things work out for them and be mildly inspired by their success, but have they been truly tested in their lives, or have they been lucky. I prefer to save my quiet praise for the people whose lives were tested, who regardless of how often or how hard they were knocked down – they got back up. If Rocky Balboa had stopped getting back up would he still have become a cultural phenomenon? Simply the answer is no. 

My friend Murphy had a tough home life growing up. I don’t mean her parents didn’t cave into everything she asked for. I mean on top of her own challenges that she was born with, she entered a world of physical and emotionally abusive dynamics. The truths she has shared with me, now decades after the fact, make me want to weep. For me the most sacred duty of a parent is to protect your children from harm. She had the opposite of that. When she was old enough to move out, she did. Years later she realized she had married herself into another abusive relationship. ` When the need to leave outweighed the danger of staying she took her kids and left. Almost all of the doctors, lawyers and cops Murphy encountered throughout these difficult years were not the protective umbrella they should have been. 

Where is the “role model” in all of this? It is between the lines but it is there. The white spaces speak volumes. Murphy kept getting back up. Those five words say more than a fast glance at her might suggest. Although throughout her life she took physical and emotional beatings that would have permanently crippled almost everyone else Murphy has refused to stay down. She is a warrior mother who teaches her kids about the many pitfalls that society will lay at their doorstep, and by example how to survive them. She also teaches them about kindness, hope and the benefits of love and generosity. From her they have learned about art and self-expression. She is an Amazonian queen, a poet and a hero to me. On any given day she is the light in someone’s darkness. This is the kind of person I look up to. Murphy is my Rocky.

A second demographic I would like to introduce you to is the “never-gave-inners”. Actor Anthony Hopkins is credited with saying “None of us are getting out of here alive”. None of us are but some people get dealt a hand that forces them to live the whole or large portions of their lives in excruciating misery. It takes a special person to rise above such a bleak sentence.

Cancer is a truly horrible set of diseases. Hudson was diagnosed with and fought the worst variation of cancer, I have ever personally encountered. Throughout his battle he exhibited a love for life that I can only describe as ferocious. I never heard him complain about the hand he was dealt. He still saw his life as being filled with many wondrous things. The stars and moon of Hudson’s world was his wife. She was, in capital letters, the LOVE of his life. He cherished his family, and every day he got to spend with them. He was blessed with an amazing singing voice. For decades he used it every chance he could, house parties, back yard campfires, at the camp with friends, or sitting on the couch at home just him and his guitar. Hudson had lots in his life to sing about.

As Hudson’s cancer ran its course, at least in my presence, he never lamented the days he was going to miss. He chose to be grateful for the days he had been given. Before his diagnosis he lived his life like every day mattered. The inevitability of his prognosis heightened his resolve to enjoy every possible moment he was blessed to experience. He knew he couldn’t beat death, he just refused to give cancer the victory. For understanding his life could rise above the difficulties he faced, Hudson is my Samwise Gamgee*. 

Writers often use composites of real people to flesh out their fictional characters. Murphy and Hudson are real people, only their names have been changed for privacy purposes. Murphy was trafficked as a child, repeatedly. Hudson was deformed by his cancer in ways I don’t have words to describe. Murphy is a real word optimist even while she is teaching people how harsh the real world is. As I write this I can now see more reasons to be hopeful than I may have considered before I began collecting my thoughts. I have come to realize it is not an absence of role models but a speed of life that leaves me little time to consider my inspirations when I need them the most.

*Often regarded as the strongest character from The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, I concur.