Superman

(Contributed by Mitch Greene)

I have never seen my father raise his voice. My mother and father have such an amazing relationship that you could have added the caption “and they lived happily ever after” at their wedding. I have never seen my father lose his composure from frustration. No matter how difficult something may be, he would figure out his way through it because “problems are meant to be solved, not lived with.” I have never seen my father cry. He is in touch with his emotions, but he is also always in control of them because everything he does influences the people around him. I’ve never seen my father looking lazy, being disrespectful, interrupting conversations, mistreating his wife, or anything that too many people fall short of.

Having a man like that in your house sounds crazy, but I’ve always been around it. Amazing is the norm. I see it daily, and it isn’t unusual. In fact, before I understood what other fathers were like, I thought it was normal for a father to yell something like this to their son: “P.E.P! Passion, Effort, Purpose.” But that was just a part of life. I never knew what marital struggle was until I saw it elsewhere. I didn’t know what life with the “average role model” looked like until I experienced it outside of my family.

When I realized just how unusual, rare, and incredible my father is, the prospect of being like him became less of a goal and more of a dream. In my mind, any mistake I made was one more than he ever made. Someone telling me that I would be like my dad sounded the same as telling me I would walk on water. My father is not Jesus, but he is a prophet to me.

One day I was going through the motions like usual when my mom pulled me aside to tell me that someone very important to my dad may have leukemia. They weren’t sure yet, but it was a likely possibility. When this news came in, my dad was out working, but I knew he got a phone call as well. I knew it would have been hard on him, but I truly didn’t know what to expect. When he finally came home, I walked to where he was to greet him and immediately saw something I had never seen before. My mighty, unbreakable father had swollen, bloodshot eyes. The man who controlled his emotions like he controlled his words had been crying before, and it was genuinely shocking to me. It wasn’t that I thought it was bad; I just wasn’t prepared to see it.

The sight of my dad’s eyes surprised me, but what surprised me more was how he talked to me when he saw me. It was shocking because it was the same. He smiled at me with the same care he always had, and he spoke with the same confident, joyful tone he always had. Something in my heart told me he wasn’t faking it either. It was as genuine as it ever had been.

He was hurting to his core and smiled with the same love and respect as always. Even in this moment, he was still exactly the same. That’s when I realized that it wasn’t about living up to my father. I wanted to live up to his standards, while all he wanted was to be the hero we needed. Being that role model wasn’t about him being the best he could be. It was about being what he thought we deserved. Walking on water is impossible if you’re doing it for yourself. Superman wasn’t Superman for himself. He became it for me.

For who, what will you become?