Heroes

The other day, I got a blessing.
One piece of counsel I received was to read uplifting, meaningful literature.
So I decided that I would rekindle my love for biographies.
I found a book at the good ol' MPL called "Heroes For My Daughter" by Brad Meltzer.
Every page has a picture and blurb about a hero he wants his daughter to learn from.
I learned about peeps like Abraham Lincoln, Sally Ride, the lady who created Sesame Street and the dude who hired Jackie Robinson.
Each person only got like a page.
Brad picked specific things about each person to share.
The point being that he wanted to highlight specific traits for his little girl.

The book got me thinking.
I have no shortage of heroes in my life.
I could write a book about each of them.
But Brad's technique spoke powerfully to me.

So I've decided to dedicate a blog post to each of my heroes.
I'll barely be able to scratch the surface of their greatness, but I'll highlight one or two specific things they've done or exemplified that have helped me through the last two years of my life.

First on the line up is my niece Junie.
That's right. One of my greatest heroes is a 2 year old.
June is not just any 2 year old.
She has a sixth sense.
You know how horses and dogs can relate to peeps with special needs? Sense them?
Junie's like that with mental illness.

One night she was asleep and I was babysitting.
I started to panic.
Feeling pretty horrible.
And she woke up.
And let me hold her.
For like an hour.
She knew I needed her.

Junie knows when I'm in a funk.
She'll come sit on my lap and cuddle the crankies out of me.
She has a gift.

For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I've become one of her favorite people over the past year.
She comes to me first.
She wants me to do things for her instead of anyone else.
Junie chooses me.
That is validating.

On those occasions when I feel like more trouble than I'm worth, I can remember that Junie adores me.
So I must not be all that bad.