Bleeding Fiction

When I left New Jersey after my winter break, I left a lot of stuff behind. It was a combination of Christmas presents, stuff I bought for myself while I was there and stuff I'd left behind when I moved. I just couldn't fit it all on the plane and still have room for my clothes. So, I asked my parents to ship it to me. In typical fashion, they put it off and forgot for a long while. I finally got my stuff - some CDs, some DVDs, assorted books and the wonderful, wonderful first two volumes of the Complete Peanuts today.

As awesome as all that is, though, the best part of the package was the note that my cousin Neil - the fellow who actually did the shipping, through his company's mailing room - slipped into the box. It was a nothing note, just a quick "hello and stay well," but it means a lot, seeing as it came from my hero.

My cousin Neil's my hero. He has been since I was very young. There's nothing he did to inspire this. He didn't fight off a marauding bear or anything. It's just his personality. He was always friendly to everyone I saw him interact with and that friendliness was always sincere. I was never naive enough to think that Neil didn't have any problems or that there weren't people he disliked. On the contrary I was always sure that whatever my problems and whoever I hated, Neil had experienced and hated worse. But he was still so sincere and that made him my hero.

He was always the guy I wanted to be when I got older and now, now that he's working and married and about to have his second child, that really hasn't changed. Neil didn't get his life's ambition (he wanted to play professional baseball), though it wasn't for lack of trying. But he's happy with what he's got, because he sees the value in it. I hope that, even if I don't ever realize all of my ambitions, I can recognize the same value in the things I have in my life.

It's nice to get a reminder, every now and then, that I still have a hero. S'cuse me, I've got to call him up and say thank you.