Superheroes

In light of Mother’s and Father’s day

 

Now that I’m off my beauty/ fashion/ business kick for awhile, I can focus on things a little less superficial. But in the same vein, I suppose you need to go through the superficialities to get to the parts that are meaningful; You have to peel the rind before you can get to the core. But no worries, I’m sure I’ll be back to my fashionista ways soon enough. Just give me a sunny day, a pair of heels, and some lip gloss and the world is rose-colored again. But seeing today is another gloomy, cloudy day in Big Rapids, I can clear my head of all the sugar-coated fuzziness and think about things that might actually matter.

This leads me to thinking about parent-oriented holidays celebrated in these months of Spring. Having just celebrated Mother’s Day in May and on our way to celebrating Father’s Day in June, this is the perfect time to take a deeper look at our parents in the midst of celebrating their ability to conceive.

To me, and I think to most kids, parents are a bit like superheroes when you are growing-up. They are strong enough to break through brick walls when they lock the keys in the house, are as fast as the speed of lightening when driving you to soccer practice, fly around the world fighting crime and are home in time to make you your afterschool snack, use their x-ray vision to find your lost teddybear, and of course always scare the bad guys away - especially that mean boy named Rufus who always picks on you at the playground. In the precarious eyes of a child, parents are infallible.

But sometimes as you get older, their superpowers start to wane. More and more amounts of kryptonite make them weak:  failed marriages, addiction, physical and mental abuse, an inability to show emotion, health problems, lost motivation and drive in life, money troubles, unemployment, greed, apathy, impossible expectations, abandonment, power and control issues, lies, let-downs, broken promises, disappointments.

It’s then that their masked identities unravel. You realize they really aren’t superheroes anymore, but rather tragic heroes: a person who means well, but an error of judgement or an inherent flaw (known as their “tragic flaw” in the literary world) combined with external forces and extinuating circumstances, leads to their downfall.

And it is at this point in life at their weakest, they hand the torch to you. And you need to put on that mask and save them from the one thing that could be their demise: themselves.

Enjoy your mothers and fathers in these spring months, whether superhero or tragic hero.

M.