brushfire"This, yes, this, it was always like this." -Stanley Koehler
REFLECTIONS OF AN EMPTY NESTER
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Years ago my husband and I took our kids to see the animated Pixar movie, “The Incredibles.” Mr. and Mrs. Incredible and their three children, Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack, were an awful lot like our own little family of five, living their quiet suburban life. Only there was one essential difference: each member of the Incredibles family had a different superpower. Our 7-year-old son loved Frozone, whose superpower was to form and control ice. But his favorite character was Dash, not just because of his supersonic speed, but because he was the character he could most identify with. Flash forward to 2018 and our son is now a 21-year-old film major in college. He’s still a fan of superhero movies, though — in particular Marvel Comics live-action films. While he may have gone to see Marvel’s most recent release, “Black Panther,” to admire its cinematic artistry, narrative arc and mythological tropes, the societal significance of this epic film was not lost on him. As rapper Big Sean said on FOX 2 Detroit when he surprised kids at a “Black Panther” screening at Royal Oak Emagine Theater in late February, “It’s important for kids, especially Detroit Public School kids, to see black superheroes because that’s what they are. And that’s something that we rarely get to see.” We all need to see heroes who look like us, opening our eyes to our own possibilities. If you watched “The Post,” you saw that moment Washington Post owner Kay Graham, played by Meryl Streep, walked down the steps of the Supreme Court after the landmark decision supporting a free press over government redeemed her choice to risk her family’s business for the greater good. Graham, unlike her male counterparts from the New York Times, chose not to make a statement under the public limelight, but as she walked down those sunlit steps through the crowd, the gaze of admiring young women along the way served as its own spotlight. Such moments of bravery and redemption may be fodder for Hollywood, but in reality they’re rare. More often, it’s ordinary people waging small, daily battles. A mother fighting for access to a least-restrictive classroom environment for her child with special needs. Recovering alcoholics starting a support group to help others overcome their addiction. Parents reeling from the loss of a child dedicating their lives to suicide awareness and prevention. A suburban mom who turned a passion for helping others into a bridge across divided cities. These are all true stories of courage among real heroes in my own community. Recently at an event celebrating short fiction, I was given a coffee mug with the inscription: “I write. What’s your superpower?” It made me think about how we all can use our gifts for some bigger purpose. Some do so with superhuman gifts on an international stage, like Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon and freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, the first openly gay American athletes in the winter events. They entertain with their prowess on the ice and ski hill, respectively, but their true superpower lies in their willingness to risk public disdain and vile attacks on social media to serve as the role models they themselves lacked. They make being true to yourself appear as fluid and effortless as a triple axel on the ice or an aerial maneuver on the slopes. It isn’t. Nor, like those athletic feats, did it come without hard work, pain, fear of failure and moments of despair. Rippon and Kenworthy may dream of a day when all athletes, gay or straight, are known only as athletes. Similarly, my mother-in-law, the first female tenured full professor in the Engineering School at Johns Hopkins University and the only woman to win the Mathias Medal for her work on the Chesapeake Bay, told me recently she wants to be known for her science, not for being a woman in science. Her superpower is her ability to look into a microscope and record an entire history of ecological change. Yet journalists profiling her work seek to tell the personal side of her journey as a wife and mother fighting for recognition in a male-dominated world while juggling childcare and domestic duties. My mother-in-law may chafe at this, but, as she looks toward her future as a professor emeritus at age 87, part of her legacy will be as a role model and superhero to other women — including her two granddaughters — whether she likes it or not. This appeared in the March 7, 2018 issue of the Grosse Pointe News.
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Mary Anne BrushJournalist, fiction writer, wife and mother |