Clark Kent

A friend posted this on Facebook:

Remember how safe and secure you felt as a child when you held an adult's hand? What gives you that same feeling now?

Rather than be one of those people who runs a coup d'etat on someone's page, I figured I'd just write my own post.

I remember when my grandmother was Batman to me and her house offered the protection of the Batcave. When I was six, I had a nightmare that an alien spaceship hovered outside my window and was trying to abduct me. I woke up screaming. My mother ran in the room and tried to calm me down, but at just 22 herself, she wasn't big and bad enough to protect me from an extraterrestrial threat. No, I needed someone more seasoned. I needed someone older. I needed Grandma.

My mother actually loaded me up into the car at eleven at night and drove all the way across town so that I could spend the night at my grandmother's house. My grandmother sat beside me on the bed until I fell asleep, but not before giving me an egg and bacon sandwich at almost midnight and some Kool-Aid. I slept like a baby. I was under the protection of The Justice League.

Fast forward 25 years and I'm donning my own cape and tights. My daughter sees me as Superman, but the truth is that I'm only Clark Kent. I can't stop bullets or speeding cars running red lights. The only superpower I have is not allowing her to see my fear. I'm afraid of the world too. I know that there are very bad people out there who mean us harm and while the instinct to protect her to the point of my own destruction is hardwired into my DNA, the sad reality is that there may come a day when everything that I am and everything I have won't be enough. And that scares me. But again, my superpower is a poker face.

So I hold her hand like my grandmother did me all those years ago, and I look her in the eye and tell her that everything is going to be okay because Daddy's here. And when she's not looking, I pray to God that it's true.