Super Hero

“How brave are you?"

“Super brave.”

“How kind are you?"

“Super kind.”

“How smart are you?”

“Super smart.”

“How important are you?”

“Super important.”

“How handsome are you?”

“Super handsome.”

Watching his frown stretch into an ear-to-ear smile as he is reminded of these things brings me inexplicable joy.

He’s my 10-year-old super hero who has lived through fiercely toxic environments. He is one of the sweetest boys you will meet, but over the years I’ve seen signs of him becoming the ways he is treated. My initial instinct is to grab those behaving wrongfully towards him and demand they realize their mistakes and change. Surely this would save him. But then I realize everyone has their habits formed by years, sometimes even generations of "this is just the way things have always been done." Only time will dig out those roots. So just throw in the towel and leave? No. Stay. Stay and create a pattern of reminders of who else he can choose to be.

One Sunday morning I picked up his family for church. We hadn't driven but for a few seconds before mom demanded I stop the car. I did, then watched my sweet super hero take a verbal beating. For what? Crying. He was just crying. I tightly gripped the steering wheel to restrain myself from ripping into mom in front of her kids. We would deal with that later. In that moment, I just needed to drive. Most of the ride was silent until we parked. Then I heard it again - such loud, angry and disappointing words towards, at the time, an 8-year old boy who put on wet pants because it was the only pair he could find. Mom proceeded up the sidewalk while the kids turned into the first door of kids church. I pulled my super hero aside, got down on one knee, and explained to him it was okay for him to cry and how sometimes we take out our anger on the wrong people, even when it has nothing to do with them. He didn't look at me. He just rubbed his eyes and cried, then spent the next 20-30 minutes in the bathroom drying his pants.

I used to think mom was the villain. She's really not. Mom adores her kids, working as hard as she can to give them all she can. But mom has her own habits formed by the habits that came before her. It's just the way things have always been done. This isn't an excuse, it's a reality. Telling mom to just stop behaving like this would be the same as telling an alcoholic to just stop drinking. Does it happen by divine miracle? Sure. But usually it's a process with several maze-like levels. So the same way I speak to my super hero is the same way I speak to mom - identifying the good and reminding her of the options she has in choosing who to be.

Your destiny is not determined by what everyone else has done before you. Who you are is not dictated by what other people have said you cannot be. Remove those limits, then help your neighbor remove theirs too.