Growing up I was a huge fan of all the superhero movies. I wanted to be Spiderman… I mean how cool would it be to cling to walls, have superhuman strength, and a “spider-sense” that let you know when danger was near? For an eight-year-old boy, let me tell you Spiderman was the epitome of cool. As I’ve gotten older, although clinging to walls and having superhuman strength would still be cool, I think something far more helpful in this world would be the superpower of healing.
As an eight-year-old boy I also remember around the holiday season seeing an ad campaign for St. Jude’s urging people to donate money to sick children. Children whose bodies were filled with cancer and were spending their days in the hospital. I remember seeing a boy who looked to be about my age, a boy who I bet also loved Spiderman. It was that same boy who was bald with tubes coming out of his nose… each breath a fighting struggle.
That boy has stuck with me almost a decade later. Each year when the holidays come around and I see the St. Jude ad campaigns, I think of that boy. I wonder what became of him, and each year I try to justify how it’s fair that he was given that lot in life, while I was given mine. I have a healthy body that has gotten me to and from over the years and has allowed to me to accomplish whatever I set my mind to.
So yes, Spiderman has some very impressive superpowers, but for me healing would be something I think would outdo clinging to walls. To never have to see a child in pain and to give those children who are sick the ability to live and go achieve their dreams just like me.
Something else I envied about Spiderman was that he didn’t seem to have a kryptonite that held him back. I like to think if I had the superpower of healing, I wouldn’t have a kryptonite to hold me back either. Because if I had the ability to heal, I would put aside whatever weaknesses I may have that would hinder me from helping others.
I try to help others in my daily life as much as I possibly can, even if that means assisting someone on the side of the road to fix a flat tire or just lending my ear to a friend who needs to talk. These small things do not make me a superhero, but they do help others… which in the end is what all superheroes set out to do.
