Who Inspires You?

In today’s world there are many women that we could look up to and try to emulate. But I find that the women that most inspire me are women that I know personally. Their stories have a way of connecting to my life in ways that a stranger’s can not.

For instance, I look at my female relatives. All these women are part of my family. Each worked hard to make a difference in the lives of their children.

"What did they do that was so special?" you ask.

"Good question."

Let go back in time, we all know the world was different then, but how. Women didn’t have the rights we enjoy today. My grandmother, who was born in 1886, never missed a chance to vote because she knew what it was like not to get to vote. My mother and aunts were some of the first women to work outside of their homes. Their labor paved away for all of us. The conditions and low pay they endured help us move into high paying jobs and careers that women of their time didn’t even dream about having.

"Big deal, I have a job, does that make me special?"

"Yes, it does. But does it make you someone’s hero?"

"I don’t have that answer."

"So what’s the point?"

I guess the point is that you could be someone’s hero without even knowing it. The women in my life are unique. Each struggled to do what they had to do to make their life and their family’s lives better.

Are they superheroes? Can they leap a tall building?

No, but they make their small piece of the world better because they are in it. Superman can dive in and save someone’s life in a few minutes, but going to the same job for thirty years so your family can live in a nice neighborhood is much harder to achieve. That’s the act of my heroes.

I see their little acts of every day living as ripples that change the generations that follow them. If they can do it, I can too.

Ladies, you inspire me.