Definition Essay: Defining A Hero

Nobody knows what a hero is the first time you ask them. The long pause that exists when you’re asked to define one, or when you’re asked who yours is. After all, what is a hero? Bravery, courageousness, valiant; all adjectives coming to mind of a hero. The surgeons, the doctors, the nurses, all the way to the clerk who checked you into the hospital; even though it wasn’t the clerk performing the stitches, they wouldn’t be there without them. The teachers, underpaid to educate kids about the essentials of growing up. How much can you pay someone to teach future generations the requisites of being an adult? Heroes don’t appear on the front page of newspapers everyday, you see them walking on the sidewalk, or checking out at the grocery store; these heroes are everywhere.

I walked into the hospital covering my face, blood all over my hands. I was afraid to show anyone the gash on the side of my face. When my mother and I were able to check into a room, the nurse began to examine the whole left section of my face nearly immediately, almost as if she was expecting me. Watching her fingers poke into a deep gash like it was a toddler examining an ant was almost overwhelming with amazement. The physician’s assistant stepped in for the nurse,
with needle and silk in hand. I winced when she made the first poke, but she made me laugh, even after being afraid of what had just happened. Doctors were scrambling outside my door, fanatically searching for which room they had to be in, but she continued to suture the bite on my left cheek. Weeks later, my stitches were taken out. The bite was still swollen and red, but it looked amazing for a maze of a cut. What a doctor would struggle with, a physician’s assistant was able to accomplish with ease. I can never remember the P.A’s first name, but I can never forget the last name Caldwell. She is one of my heroes; she changed my life by doing a job she does everyday, yet I was just another patient in her view. These doctors, surgeons, masterminds of the human body are praised for their work, after all they deserve it. Nonetheless many forget about the people who work under them, the ones who wake up at the same times as the doctors and are just as tired at the end of the day.

When I was around six years old, my mom got me my first human anatomy book.
I was addled by the lengthy words and detailed pictures. I’d bring the book to my mom’s office at the hospital, and whenever a doctor came to ask her a question, I’d ask them the questions that appeared when I’d read. I hated reading, but the book helped me learn about things I wanted to be able to perform when I was older, I wanted to be a doctor. What I didn’t grasp when I was young, was that I didn’t want to look at tendons, cut skin open, or poke at a brain, I wanted to be the person who was able to save lives. I want to be a hero, but what I’ve thought for so long to be one was excessive, when I’m surrounded by the heroes that are most
noble.