What is courage, anyway? Of course I can look in the dictionary and find a definition for courage. What I prefer to do is look around me and see courage in action. Everyone I know possesses courage in some way. I watch people persevere when life is unbearably harsh, and I watch people ask for help when they need it. I watch people live the lives they want and deserve, even when finding their way to the right life may leave hurt in its wake. I watch people facing death and accepting the inevitability.
Two weeks ago, I watched my 8-year-old niece fight fear and climb into a tree house. She couldn't reach the bottom step on the trunk of the tree and had to use my shoulders for another step. The first time she tried to go up, she was actually shaking. The second time, she got nearly to the tree house and needed to come back down. Eventually, though, she did it. Not without hesitation and not without fear, but she did it. Had she climbed without fear, it wouldn't have taken courage. Overcoming that fear and climbing the tree is courage.
My nephew has yet to climb to the tree house. Although his failure to climb may not seem courageous, in my eyes he is brave. He doesn't want to climb that tree, and he has no intention of giving in to pressure or teasing. He makes funny excuses, such as not wanting to climb it because he might fall on us and hurt us, but he holds his ground.
My grandfather is staring death in the face and has yet to blink. He knows. I'm absolutely certain he knows. He talks about having had a good life and about not being able to change things. He told me he wishes he and my grandmother could go at the same time. If he is afraid, he doesn't show it.
Courage can be doing something or not doing something. It can be taking circumstances into your own hands or waiting for time to take control. Perhaps Mark Twain would have said he couldn't define courage, but he knew it when he saw it.
No comments:
Post a Comment