Finding our heroes
SOMETIMES in life you get a sharp reminder of what’s really important.
It’s easy to get worked up about little things that annoy us like keyboard warriors or your team not winning that big game.
As legitimate as those concerns may be, they are insignificant compared with the challenges some members of our community are facing.
Last Friday I attended an incredibly inspiring fundraiser at Kardinia Park, the Bethany Superhero Awards breakfast. It recognised the true superheroes of our community.
There were the grandparents who took responsibility for raising their two-year-old grandchild, because her parents were unable. Having not long ago entered retirement, they’ve now gone back to work so they can fund this precious little girl’s education, and give her the best chance of a happy and successful life.
There was the father who works full-time while spending nights at the hospital, grabbing what sleep he can in a chair by his seriously ill daughter’s bedside.
And there was an art teacher who continued to educate and care for her students while enduring treatment for cancer. Her students nominated her because, even at their young age, they could see her courage and selflessness.
Our community is full of these remarkable people who are thrust into near impossible situations and meet their challenges head-on.
They do what they have to do to survive, and to care for the people they love. Often — nearly always — this comes at great expense to their career and personal life. They don’t seek headlines or plaudits, they see themselves as simply doing what they have to do.
But it’s important every now and again that we do recognise these people, and I congratulate Bethany for doing so.
Sitting beside me on a panel during the breakfast was Paralympic gold medallist Kelly Cartwright. She is one of the most inspiring people you’d ever meet. By now, most people in Geelong are familiar with her story. Faced with aggressive cancer in her right knee at age 15, she made the decision to have her leg amputated. Fitted with a prosthetic leg, she learnt to walk again, then willed herself to be truly extraordinary. She climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2009, then won gold in the long jump at the 2012 London Paralympics, as well as silver in the 100m sprint. More recently she focused on powerlifting, setting Australian records in that too.
Besides her own incredible drive to succeed, Cartwright also has a passion for helping and inspiring others, serving as an ambassador for multiple not-for-profit organisations, and speaking at many events, such as the one on Friday.
I walked away feeling extremely uplifted by the way people in the Geelong community are meeting their challenges.
Later in the morning I went to Ocean Grove, where hundreds of excited kids had gathered for the official opening of the new playground at Kingston Park.
This swarm of energetic children exploring the new equipment — including a very impressive 6-metre high tower slide — contrasted to the stories I’d heard that morning. Those kids didn’t have a worry in the world. Their only challenge in that moment was how quickly they could get back to the top of the tower and slide down again.
As parents or grandparents, this happiness in our children or grandchildren is the greatest sight to see.
We know as they grow they’ll all face difficult times and choices. They won’t all be health-related, but they will have significant impact for themselves and others. We can only hope that when these difficulties arise, they won’t be at the most serious end of the scale.
And if, in a stroke of terrible luck, they do come up against a lifechanging obstacle, we hope we’ll have the strength, courage and selflessness to put all else aside and help them through it … just like the Bethany superheroes.