While I expressed my affection for Davide Martello, aka The German Piano Man, in last week’s column, now, just a scant week later I find myself needing to share my thoughts of awe and respect for Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine.

This time is about sheer admiration. He fulfills my need for heroes of hope in shaky times. I learned at a young age that heroes, like flowers, grow from many different stems, each to be admired for what it contributed.

I was not yet a teenager when I met my first hero. He was our neighbor in the Virginia suburb where I grew up.

When my younger brother was around three or four, he had an imaginary friend named Coogie. One afternoon Peter was sitting on the curb in front of our house talking to this friend. I perched next to him and joined the conversation. Having had many inanimate acquaintances myself – that I kept to myself – I admired my brother’s openness about Coogie, who was smilingly accepted by family and neighbors. Except one.

Captain White – I never knew his first name or what he was captain of – lived across the street in a brick house that had rounded sides, reminiscent of a castle.

He was a retired military man, a little foreboding at best. Not one to chitchat with neighbors, especially non-existent ones, he mostly stayed to himself. But on this day he crossed the street and said hello to us, adding, “How’s your little friend?”

I stared wordlessly in surprise, but Peter, who didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t like his friend, responded. At that, Captain White bent down and they exchanged a few words. They may have even laughed. Memory is a faulty messenger.

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What I do remember, with certainty, is the pain reflected on the older man’s face, even as it softened into a smile. Much later I discovered that he had been a war hero. Whatever earned him that honor had also caused him to close himself off from people. And I learned that hero is not a name. It’s a sacrifice.

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