Everybody dreams of being a hero

I HAVE this morbid confession to make. I sometimes (like) envision what would happen if I got some type of catastrophic news. Some dies, gets sick, fire, famine, pestilence and plauge and many times I imagine how I would react to this. Of course I always see myself getting this news while I'm surrounded by people, having a great old time (Hey, I didn't say this wasn't the stupidest thing to do in the world) and then the phone rings, insert above mentioned crises and !viola! I react like a cross between Winston Churchill and Scarlett O' Hara (ya'll know how i feel about that bitch).  I don't think that I'm alone in this, at least not in imagining  that I am capable of surmounting huge obstacles or facing the crumbling of my life with courage and dignity. I think that's pretty normal. Today, however, I realized that you can imagine all you want, but just like everything else real life somehow manages to butt in. 

I have to preface the rest of this by saying that I never do this. Even though I'm sure my people aren't always the classiest in the world, there are a few things that "just aren't done". For one in my house, our emotions were these things to be kept below the surface. They were usually these uncomfortable "things" that no one wanted to hear about unless you were happy and by extension didn't bother anyone else when you showed them. The other thing you just don't do is air your dirty laundry or worse complain about life. Sure it might be OK to bitch and complain about a few things, but you never want to let anyone ever see that you might be vulnerable, and weak, somehow less able. That being said I would never have thought about ever doing this, bearing my soul or even talking about a minor crises on a blog... but I have to do this just so I can focus and get some clarity-  here goes....

I got that phone call today, the one I've imagined more often than I'd like to admit in my head:

MOM: Honey, you know how your dad's arm has been hurting?

ME: Yea, and...?

MOM: Well he found a lump under his arm and there is this small chance that it might be benign...but the doctors don't think it's aggressive.

ME:  Well i figured as much since he wasn't feeling very well, I'm just glad it's not his heart. (WTF? Yeah the part where we don't show how we really feel).

Don't get me wrong I'm relieved to know that my dad isn't going to have a heart attack, but at least that would be less surprising than "Gee honey there's a small chance your dad might NOT have a cancerous tumor"... I don't know what to think. I guess that's the shock, and yea even though I didn't cry (I NEVER CRY) I sure didn't just say "Fiddle-dee-dee" and keep on going. 

I guess in the very end this is where you remember that even Scarlett O' Hara was terrified of the fictional dangers that confronted her. Winston Churchill was all too aware of what would happen if he gave into his "black dog" and if the British Empire crumbled. No matter how cool they looked, I'm pretty sure were shitting bricks. I guess real heroism is knowing that you can be afraid and not letting it stand in your way. I can do this.