Throughout life we know, meet and admire many people.
Still, there is always a special person that represents the hero to whom we look up to. When people mention the word “hero”, the first thing that pops into our heads is a person with a cape and superpowers, but we should be aware that not all of the heroes wear capes! Such a hero is my grandfather…
My grandfather was an infant boy who was a very sickly child.
At the age of 6, he was already hospitalized several times because of his poor health. When he had finished primary and high school, he started working as a mailman in the small town, but he was soon recruited to fight in wars. During the military training, he proved himself to be quite capable of becoming a pilot which he did. By the age of 18, he already had his flight hours!
Still, because of his health problems, he was denied further flight activities so he had to return to his little town. Without any money and job opportunities, he worked as a cleaning man in the local theatre.
His job was not only to sweep the floors but to make sure that everything is working perfectly on set, from equipment and costumes to actors and their lines. One day, the main actor of one play broke his leg while climbing the backstage and he was unable to perform.
My grandfather who remembered the entire text jumped in and started acting instead of him. The theatre decided to employ him as one of their actors since they were amazed by his undiscovered talent. Throughout his short life, he became one of the better-known theatre-actors in his little town and he earned a lot of money considering the job that he did and the time in which he had lived.
Later, he married my grandmother and he accomplished everything that he imagined. At one point he wrote his plays for the theatres and many of the plays were quite successful. When I was little, he was in the late stage of Parkinson's disease and he was unable to move anything except his left arm.
Even with such struggles, he thought me the basic principles of theatre and stage performance. He explained to me what is the purpose of living a life and how to live it. Even though he died young in his 40’ and despite his health problems, he became a hero to me because he had taught me that you can accomplish anything you desire no matter how hard your life is and that the only thing you need is a will to live.
As I said at the beginning, not all heroes wear capes. Still, I can assure you that my hero wore not one but many capes throughout his acting career days. He proved to everyone that you can wrestle with destiny and win! I know that most people expect from a hero to be a hero to everyone which is almost always the case with a soldier, a policeman, a firefighter, etc. but I could not be more proud of having a person who is a hero to me.
