THE NAMES AND FACES OF HEROES [W, 3-6-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man--THE NAMES AND FACES OF HEROES [W, 3-6-25]

 

[Our church, St. Mark’s on the Bypass, has produced a book of Lenten devotional reading, written by folks in the congregation. We were asked to write on “what makes you come alive.” This is my contribution.]

Helen and I were once part of a group of young married couples. It was a friendship group that was a semi-support group. We learned from one another how to be better spouses and parents. One night our leader passed out paper and told us to write our definitions of love. When we were finished, he asked us to read them. These were university people, and there were some beautiful and deeply philosophical definitions of love. I began to feel more and more uncomfortable as they came around the circle to Helen and me.

Finally, it was my turn. My definition of love was: Grandma Mac, Uncle Johnny, Aunt Nora, Helen, Mike Dickey… Then Helen read her definition: Daddy, Mother, Judy, Lucretia… We had just done lists of names. At least we were thinking alike, but it was embarrassing.

Then, though, a strange thing happened. All the other members of the group reached out and took new sheets of paper and began to write lists of names, 

We are inspired by heroes. What makes me come alive now in my old age is the same inspiration that has always enlivened me…Uncle Johnny, Grandma Mac, Helen, Mike Dickey, Jack Newsome, Mary Louise Hopkins…

So many of those are dead now, but we know that death does not conquer love. What makes me come alive is love, and this is always the way I define love, always the way I come alive, by seeing and saying “the names and faces of heroes…”

I start with those of my childhood and youth… Darrell, Carolyn, Don, Anne, Bob, Mary Louise, Mike, Donna, Jim, Mina, Jarvis, Hovey, Wilbur … and keep going through the years. Maybe by the time Lent is over, I’ll have completed the Lenten list, become fully alive, by living in that “great cloud of witnesses.”

John Robert McFarland

The Names and Faces of Heroes is the title of a book by the great southern writer and fellow cancer traveler, Reynolds Price.

Happy Birthday to my North Star, the one whose face has always made me want to be a hero.