When X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the latest of the X-Men movies, was released, my husband, daughter and I were there for opening night. Like so many others, we’re fans of shows about characters with superpowers. Ironman. Spiderman. Watchmen. The Spirit.

For Geoff and I, it’s a love that lingers from childhood. We enjoy the nostalgia of seeing our old friends on the big screen. But for many, the attraction is larger than that. Ours is a world hungry for heroes, desperate for someone-real or fictional-that we can look up to. Someone we can trust to do the right thing, no matter the cost. 

I expect that many, if asked about heroes, would say they’re something that ends with childhood. That they’re a need we outgrow. That the world-saving role model whose identity can be hidden by glasses is so impossible it’s laughable. Yet we still like the concept so much that Hollywood is filming the flicks one after another. 

Most of us are lucky as kids that we can find easy heroes, but as we mature, we lose track of what it was about those heroes that we admired. The ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound will always be cool, but that in itself isn’t all that heroic. It’s the to-the-core goodness, the willingness to die if need be to protect those we love, that we looked up to and wanted to emulate.

“As you get older, it is harder to have heroes,” wrote Ernest Hemingway. “But it is sort of necessary.”

I’ve always been lucky to have easy access to heroes, ones I didn’t have to buy comic books or go to the theater in order to see. My father’s my hero. He always has been, and always will be.

He and my mother have been the steadfast ones I could count on, regardless of the circumstances. They can calm my fears now as well as when I was 10.

I love it when others talk to me about Dad. His former coworkers can make him sound superhuman, like a character from a classic movie or novel, someone larger-than-life and respected by all. (And feared by a few.)

He’s compassionate, yet tough. Sensible, yet silly. His morals and values are so ironclad that I find it unfathomable to imagine him doing anything that barely even tickles of wrong. 

But it’s Dad’s fearlessness that I most admire. He never allowed his lack of experience at something to deter him from attempting to do it. So what if he’d never re-roofed a house? He’d say that even the fastest and most efficient roofer had to start somewhere. He’d puzzle it out and learn as he’d go.

The older I get, the more my dad seems to come out in me. I’ve adopted his fearlessness with what I’ll take on (although I lack his capacity to complete what I start). Like Dad, I can putter around in the yard for hours on end. So long as I’m outdoors, I’m content. And to follow Dad’s lead, I’ve never been motivated by money or position; shiny, pricey things have little appeal; and I’d rather be home than anywhere else.

I think I picked a good hero. I’ll never outgrow him. 

I have too much left to learn.  

At the end of May, I wrote about mediums, psychics, and grief-topics that my friend Becky and I had been discussing quite a bit in the months since the death of her son and the approach of what should’ve been my second daughter’s seventh birthday. 

In the days after that column appeared, I received some interesting and thoughtful emails, a few of which I wanted to share.

“Too many people grieve themselves to death, and their loved ones would never want that,” wrote Cathy Graceson of South Charleston. “Instead of holding onto their grief, they should try to find ways to use their love for the person they lost into something that helps others.

“Just think of how much the Susan G. Komen movement has done, and it was all because of what Komen’s sister, Nancy, chose to do with her grief. It was respectful of her sister’s life and has done so much to enhance the battle against breast cancer. Because Nancy channeled her pain into a positive, she made her sister’s time on earth one that has become familiar to many.

“Instead of continuing to enhance the loss and grow the pain, we should try to use the experience to help others.”

Becky’s now trying to do just that, and has started a program in her son’s memory to help other children with glycogen storage disease. (To make a donation, visit http://www.joshuaconrad.org.) 

Several readers who asked that their names not be used shared stories about experiences they’d had that couldn’t be easily explained. Among them was one from a widow whose late husband continued to have such a presence even after his death that it became a common occurrence, when she went to a restaurant, for waiters to hand her a menu, then put one at the at the empty seat across from or beside her, as if someone was sitting there, too.

“When I’d tell them I was alone, they’d do a double-take, realize the chair was empty, and then apologize profusely, often swearing they’d seen someone there. A few even crossed themselves, which I found especially amusing since self-crossing was something he almost obsessively did.

“People used to describe Frank as being ‘larger than life,’” she said. “I guess he’s larger than death, too.”

My favorite email, though, came from Barbara Postlethwait of Hurricane, and I doubt I’ll ever receive a gift like the Barbara gave me in the last lines of her note.

“This letter is a long time coming, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write it. Every time I read about you and Camille, I’ve wanted to thank you for sharing her story.

“My sister, Rosemary Sauzer, was just starting chemo and radiation when we read about it [Camille being diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy] in the paper. Rosemary had metastasized to colon cancer and she was waiting to have a treatment in the cancer area at Thomas Hospital when she read your column and said to me, ‘If this sweet little baby girl can handle treatments and pain, then I can, too.’

“Rosemary was mentally handicapped. She was 49 but with the mind of a 10-year-old, yet she absolutely LOVED to read. She couldn’t comprehend a lot of what she read, but she still loved reading. It was something our Mother encouraged us to do when we were young and it stayed with her.

“Rosemary had treatments for many months, but nothing seemed to help. Every time she was in pain or frustrated, she would say to me, ‘Camille did it, so I can, too.’

“Sometimes she would ask me if, when she died, I thought she might meet Camille, and of course I told her yes.  I told her that they’d probably become best friends, and she would always smile when I said that and say, ‘Maybe I can take her for a ride on my bicycle.’ Rosemary loved riding her bike.

“When I read the article in the paper about Camille’s birthday [Camille would’ve turned 7 on June 1], I knew I had to write and thank you for sharing her story then and now, and to let you know what a difference Camille made in my sister’s life and how she dealt with her cancer.

“Two days before Rosemary died in 2004, she told me she was going to see Mom and the little girl, Camille. I’m positive the two of them are riding on Rosie’s bike right now, with Camille on the handlebars.” 

Last weekend, my daughter and I ran up to my parent’s house to see my brother Kurt and his fiancé, Kurt’s three kids, and his oldest daughter’s boyfriend, who were all in from Ohio to attend a graduation party for a friend’s daughter.

As we sat around the kitchen table, digesting an obscene amount of pizza, the conversation drifted from college psychology classes to the many different types of phobias there are.

“Did you know the word for the fear of long words is actually one of the longest words?” my nephew Zac said. “It starts out hippo-something.”

Zac had unknowingly provided Celeste with the opportunity of a lifetime. 

“Oh, you mean hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia?” my just-out-of sixth grader casually said.

All heads turned her way.

“Say that again,” my dad said.

“Hip-po-pot-o-mon-stro-ses-quip-e-dalio-pho-bia,” said Celeste.

With few opportunities to smoothly drop her favorite word into conversation, I could tell she was relishing each delicious syllable.

“It means the fear of extremely long words,” she said.

Celeste had picked up the word from her friend, Caroline Evans, when she’d spent the night at our house a month or two ago. There is little that charms our family of word geeks more than a guest who uses a word like hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

When researching the word, I learned there’s some dispute over the spelling, with a few pundits claiming it’s often deliberately misspelled to make the word even longer.

According to the online Wiktionary, “hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian is an extension of sesquipedalian with monstrum ‘monster’ and a truncated, misspelled form of hippopotamus, intended to exaggerate the length of the word itself and the idea of the size of the words being feared; combined with phobia.”

When I was in middle school (called junior high then), I learned the word antidisestablishmentarianism with the hopes that I’d be able to work it into conversation with my history teacher, but never had the chance. (These days, I feel blessed when I manage to retain a person’s name for longer than a minute before it vanishes into the mystical Neverland that exists between my left ear and my right.)

I find it heartening, though, that this word for the fear of long words is something that’s come up with kids here in Charleston as well as teenagers living in bad-driver country, where my nephew resides.

And I like that my girl is brave enough not to be afraid of long words.

Although I wonder if there’s a word for those who fear having to spell it.

Growing up, I was fascinated with ghosts, psychics, and most anything paranormal. Over the years, my interest faded until my only forays into mystical matters were when I caught the occasional episode of “Medium” or a middle-of-the-night airing of “Crossing Over.” But a few months ago, something happened that dragged my old interest to the forefront again.

I had gone to Flatwoods for the funeral of my friend Becky’s son, Josh, who died at the age of 19 from complications of GSD-1A (glycogen storage disease). Although it was getting late when the service was over, I stopped for coffee with friends, then was about to head for home when-even though I’d visited the Flatwoods outlet mall bookstore just a few hours before-I felt compelled to go back.

Upon entering the store for the second time in a day, the first thing I saw was an audio book titled, “We Are Their Heaven” by Allison DuBois, the real life psychic whose life inspired the television show, “Medium.”

I read the back cover and decided the book seemed interesting enough to help keep me awake and alert on the drive home, so I handed over some money and then got on the road.

It didn’t take more than a few minutes of listening to the book before I realized my purchase hadn’t been meant for me. It was for Becky. Still, I couldn’t stop listening, and even though I sent her my copy the very next day, I ordered another for me.

From a literary viewpoint, the book has some flaws, but for someone who is grieving, especially the loss of a child, there is so much wisdom and perspective and comfort to be found that I can’t recommend it enough. You don’t even need to be a believer in mediums to gain from what Allison DuBois has to say.

I’ve experienced enough bizarre happenings in my life that I’m no longer a skeptic, but that doesn’t mean I’m not wary of what I’m witnessing and trying to see how it might be a scam. A good “for instance” happened a month or so back, when I was invited to participate in a group reading with a medium from Ohio, and I found myself growing increasingly annoyed with the generalities she was tossing out.

“The person coming through-they died of complications of diabetes.”

Oh, c’mon. This is West Virginia. What are the odds there isn’t someone here who has lost a loved one to diabetes?

Somewhat amused, I started jotting down notes.

“Was someone cleaning their stove right before they came here?” the medium asked. “And when they were doing it, they made a loud bang?”

I said nothing, even though the very last thing I’d done before leaving that day had been to clean the stove, and while doing so, had dropped the iron burner, which made an explosive sound when it fell.

Lots of people probably wipe off the stove before they go out, I reasoned. I’m not raising my hand.

She mentioned several more things, all of which absolutely applied to me, but were still general enough that I said nothing. Frustrated, the psychic apologized for having to be repulsive, then said, “Okay. He’s telling me this person he’s here for says that crap is the theme of her life. Literal crap, like dog poop. That all they ever do is clean poo.”

She had me there. I raised my hand.

Just that day, I’d started an email with the words, “Crap seems to be the recurring theme of my life.” (We have three dogs and three cats. One of them is sneaky and gross.)

So while the psychic definitely seemed to be getting something, how much of it was coming from the “other side” and how much was observational, I don’t know. Still, my favorite uncle Edgar was clearly on the line for a while, giving details so specific I have no doubt it was him.

But tickled as I was to have my uncle come through, I was still disappointed. He wasn’t the one I’d hoped to hear from.Tomorrow, June 1, would’ve been my daughter Camille’s seventh birthday. So hungry was I to hear from her that, unlike with my uncle, had the medium said anything at all that I could’ve twisted into having been from Camille, I would’ve been waving my hand.

Still, even having lost a child of my own, I’m finding it hard to help Becky deal with her grief. We’re at such incongruent levels–her caught up with feeling she could’ve done something more; me tangled up in the feeling that I’ve moved on too well. And yet even with the two of us at such different places, this DuBois book helped us both. Becky has now listened to it several times, while I’ve gone through my bound copy with a highlighter, marking each place where I found perspective or peace. There’s something in how DuBois phrases what she believes that make it seem both logical and apparent.

“Your loved ones don’t want you to suffer for the rest of your life, paying homage to them through your tears,” writes DuBois. “They sit there with you while you cry, and the harder you cry, the louder you get to them. Do you want to share only sorrow and pain with them daily? I think they would like to share in your happy times.”

Becky’s son was taken too young. As was Camille. As are so many more. If we allow their loss to stop us from living, it doesn’t honor their memory or prove how much we loved them. According to DuBois, those who have died want to continue to share in our lives, and we should love them enough to live large for ourselves, because it’s also for them.

More information on glycogen storage disease can be found at http://joshuaconrad.org.