Who is the person you admire most in life?

I had a whole slew of heroes growing up. Alexander the Great, Lord Admiral Nelson, Marco Polo, etc… All of whom found a way to leave a mark on their nations and/or the world. I used to think so "big" when I thought of the kinds of people who deserved to be heroes. It just wasn’t cool to think of ordinary people at all. After all, if nobody celebrated them, why should they be admired? Isn’t admiration a function of popularity and fame? I mean, if nobody admired you… were you even worth admiring?

One person I did NOT consider a hero, growing up, was my dad. It’s not that I didn’t love him or anything, because I certainly did. But I guess the idea of having "just" your dad as a hero didn’t appeal to me. After all, I wanted my life to be about big things and about fulfilling big dreams, right? So why pattern my life after a man I saw everyday? If I wanted to leave my current life, why admire the guy who was living it with me?

Ah, the follies of youth.

I will say it now, publicly, for the very first time in my life. My father is my hero.

This is a man who, at the tender age of 8, lost his own father to a heart attack, and who had to rely on scholarships to get through school. This is a man who had to watch as his own piggy bank was broken open, because his family needed all the money it could get as it was struggling to eke out a living. How many kids get to go through that???

My father studied in a "lower class" school. He does not have a Masters degree. His first formal job after school was for the minimum wage. He would walk home from work, a very looong walk away, because he wanted to save the money he would otherwise have spent on public transportation. He even gave up smoking when I was very young, partly for health reasons (his and mine), and partly because it was just too expensive for a man trying to support a family. Oh, and did I mention he was just 21 when I was 3?

Now he is a man who commands respect from society. He is a bank president, and one of the top earners in the country. He has no Masters degree, but he has many MBA holders from top universities working for him. He has many rich and powerful friends, none of whom has ever been bothered by a request for a favor from him. He doesn’t ask people for help, but he always gives people help. He pays for scholarships for at least 20 people that I am aware of (blind children who would otherwise be ignored by society), and has been personally responsible for educating most of my cousins, all the way up to college. He has the money and the prestige that goes with being a "big" man.

I respect him tremendously for being able to overcome his unfortunate circumstances, and for working so hard to succeed in life, for himself and for his family. I will always look up to him for that.

But the reason I consider him my hero, late as it may be, is not because of what he has done for others, or what he has accomplished in life, but rather for the kind of character he has as a person, and the kind of love he has shown me throughout my life: complete and unconditional. This is the man who first taught me how to shoot a basketball… who showed me how to defend myself in school… who encouraged me to keep trying harder each time I failed… who bought me books for my birthday, instead of toys, so that I would learn the value of reading…

This is the man who would buy dinner for the family, and wait as I ate first, before eating, together with my mom, whatever leftovers remained. This is the man who worked and slaved to put me through probably the finest school in the country, even if it meant scraping by as each new tuition installment came due… giving up expensive vacations, and any other luxury that would have taken away from what I needed. This is the man who had to watch his officemates drive past him each day, not offering him a ride home, as he walked each tired step home to save about 12 US cents, only to watch me grow up and spend many times that amount for stupid things I never needed.

This is the man who endured my anger and resentment as a rebellious teenager, and who would offer me love and support no matter what.

Heck, this is the man who drove me for 2 hours as I searched for the house of the girl who would become my first-ever girlfriend…

I owe him everything I have in life.

Alexander the Great (my first "big" hero) may have conquered the known world… but my father laid his pride and his heart on the line, to scrape by whatever job he could get, just so that I could eat. My father is the greater hero.

Lord Admiral Nelson conquered the Spanish armada against the greatest of odds, and died in glory for it. My father has lived his whole life to make a better life for myself and my brother and sister, sacrificing his own personal happiness along the way whenever it was necessary to do so. My father is the greater hero.

Marco Polo travelled to lands his own countrymen could only dream of, and helped to open communication lines with fabled empires far, far away. My father travelled all over the country, moving homes 9 different times before I was 18, all because he was searching for the best opportunity for his family.  My father would have gone and worked anywhere and everywhere, if it meant making all of us happy… but his heart would always remain at home. My father is the greater hero.

It’s taken me a long, long time to admit how stupid I was for thinking that heroes had to be famous to be admired. The greatest heroes are exalted not because they conquer things (otherwise Hitler would be revered today), but because they inspire people to dream of bigger things. They accomplish magnificent goals because they motivate others to work for those goals with them. My father’s only goals in life were to make his family happy, and see that his children grow up healthy and educated and well-mannered. He has accomplished all of these. He has molded me into the person I am today, and each person I help now, each cause I fight for, each value I strive to uphold, owes everything to my father’s original inspiration. Who’s to say that this is any less of an accomplishment than conquering the world?

I love my dad. He is the greatest man I have ever met in my life. And there is probably no better thing I can say than this: "I am proud to be his son."