[Anacardo]

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My wife's Nana became very ill this year and I basically took over responsibility for overseeing her care. At great financial and emotional cost my wife and I made Nana's last months as good as they could possibly be, despite the uselessness of Nana's daughter (my wife's aunt, my wife's mother is dead).

That sure doesn't sound very heroic written out. Oh, well.

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Eff that. Anybody can be a tough guy in the heat of the moment, when they've got somebody to impress, or can fulfill some fantasy, or see a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That [censored] took real fortitude and was v. hard and v. expensive. Lots of emotional, moral & psychological courage there. YOU'RE EVERYTHING I WOULD LIKE TO BE, SLIM.

To answer personally: Wow, what a bummer topic. Heroism is something that I've always aspired to, and dreamed about, but rarely if ever actually achieved.

On the one hand, I take pride in my moral courage, and conviction to say/do what I feel is right in the face of haters / fear of the consequences. On the other hand, that same pride has led me pretty far astray on more than one occasion. Many decisions that felt really good / 'right' at the time seem pretty questionable in retrospect, and I doubt that much, if any, enduring good has come from my 'hero' moments.

So to actually answer the OP - I don't know. At times I've tried to make a difference in peoples' lives, bring hope to the hopeless, blah blah blah. But I have no idea what, if any, good I have accomplished.

Anybody wanna start drinkin'?