What is a Hero?

I have a question to you fine people of Mibba. What makes a hero?

Last year I had torn my posterior ligament, my anterior, and damaged my meniscus in my left knee. I have yet to get surgery to correct this, but I will be in the next couple of months.

Today I had a swim meet. I am first in the 200 medley relay. For those of you who don't know, a 200 consists of eight laps of the pool. In a relay of four people, each swimmer would only swim 2 laps (or a 50). The order is backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle.

Now onto the actual story. I got in and was pumped. I sprinted the backstroke and got out. Then it hit me. An intense burning sensation had flowed through my knee. My mind hit panic mode and I sat down to examine my knee. It had started to swell. After the medley I was supposed to swim a 200 freestyle (an 8 lap sprint). At the meet I had Tuesday, I had almost reached my goal of getting a 2:17 (I got a 2:18.72). I got up to the block with my knee still burning and my body was trembling. I got in and tried to sprint the whole thing, ignoring the pain in my knee. About half-way through, the pain had gotten worse and I freaked out. I finished with a 2:23. I got out and I could barely walk. I talked to the trainer, and she told me she would wrap it and I would be "A otay!", but she knows how I feel about swimming.

I love it. I love it like I love reading. But, when forced to do it, it doesn't become fun and it looses its appeal. My mother is my swim coach and has been since I was five years old. Swimming is her life. So she forces me to do it...

She told me if I didn't want to be "a otay" then I don't have to be. I told her I would swim the rest of the meet. She wrapped up my knee (after finding it to be unstable, which I have to wear my stupid brace for tomorrow) and I swam my next event. Then right after I had to swim a 100 backstroke (4 laps and my last time was a 1:12). I swam it. I fucking sprinted that mother fucker. I missed my second to last turn (by a lot) because I miscounted my strokes. I went even faster. I felt the burning, I felt my muscles tightening, I couldn't breathe, but I kept going. I touched the wall and my time was a 1:13. If I hadn't missed the wall, I would have gotten a 1:11.

I got out of the pool and stumbled over to my coach, whom congratulated me. Then something happened that I never would have thought to happen. A senior (first year swimming) on our team came up to me and told me, a sophomore, that I was her hero.

I looked at her dumbfounded. I asked her why and she said, because no matter what I did, my goggles falling off the first meet, me feeling like shit, not wanting to swim anymore, or my knee basically being on fire, I still did it. I still kept swimming and did an amazing job at it. She called me a hero.

I was flattered and hugged her, but a question popped in my head. What makes a hero?

Is it just being able to push through the hard shit?

Is it helping others?

What makes a hero, Mibba?