By Winnie Bolton
When we go looking for heroes, for bravery, for courage, we often look in all the wrong places.
Take for instance the story of Mrs. Dubose who is dying of cancer in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
Young Jem destroys Mrs. Dubose’s flower garden after she says racist remarks about his father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer defending a black man in a small Alabama town.
To atone for the destruction, Atticus sends Jem to read every afternoon to Mrs. Dubose. Jem’s sister, Scout, describes her as a cantankerous and vile elderly woman.
A morphine addict who vows become clean before she dies, Mrs. Dubose enlists Jem and Scout – without their knowledge – to keep her from using morphine for longer and longer periods of time. When Jem reads, it distracts her.
On the evening of the day Mrs. Dubose dies, Atticus explains to Jem why he sent him to read to her.
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.”
When a noted rabbi visited cancer patients at Memorial Sloan – Kettering Cancer Center, he would show them a piece of paper on which he placed a single black dot. He’d ask them to explain or describe what they saw. Then the rabbi would tell them that the dot represents their cancer but that the huge blank surrounding the dot represents all that is precious and good in their lives.
Shifting their focus to a new angel of vision, they began to realize that their disease was but one small part of an otherwise full and positive life toward their destiny.
I personally think that is what Mrs. Dubose was doing. So very little in our lives is ever resolved or solved, settled or answered.
There is only the crisis itself, the struggle.
To practice heroism of going on despite the misery, the tragedy and/or the poverty that surrounds people is the greatest example of courage, bravery and heroism that I can think of – like that of widowers, widows, children left behind after great destruction, distress or terrorists’ assaults while burying their loved ones.
Only God can call us to stay in the struggle without wanting to know why and all because we can trust Him, who does have the answers.
To not have hope, compassion and trust in our hearts is the greatest tragedy of all.
To continue persevering when the odds seem insurmountable is heroic.
