Heroes

Update: My dad has a follow-up post here.

This morning I read an article about some construction workers that are building a new edition to a cancer treatment building. They have been spray painting the names of the children in the hospital on the girders as they go up. Take a second and read the article about it here. (No really, I would rather you read that article than go on and read the rest of what I have to say.)

There is a video about this on YouTube, where in the comments Katie (well xoxkatie127xox to be correct) says:

the KATIE sign in the window at 40 sec was mine and i was treated at the jimmy fund when i was three and to this day i remember my name oh the iron across the street and remember how excited i would get and how special it made me feel... these men were heros

When I first read this comment I thought: "Those aren't heroes, they didn't do anything heroic." But I thought about it, and I think that my first thought couldn't be further from the truth. I think that these guys are a prime example of being a hero.
We get caught up in what movies and TV shows make out to be heroes, the daring of James Bond, the evil fighting of Batman, and the goodness of Frodo. We forget that we can be heroes, and we don't have to have some super power to do it.
I don't know what the definition of a hero says, and I don't really care, because there is nothing more like a hero to those kids than what these construction workers are doing. They aren't saving the kids from cancer, they are just making them feel special.
Real life heroes don't save the lives and do good deeds, day in and day out, instead they touch lives and make life better for those that they encounter.