I was putting sticker labels on books today at my favorite library when one of the teachers I’m acquainted with was talking to me about a lesson he was preparing for his kids: What does a hero do when he or she loses their mentor?
We came up with various stories this happens in such as in Star Wars when Luke loses Ben and Yoda, Harry Potter when he loses Dublemdore, and in Lord of the Rings when Frodo loses Gandalf. I thought it was a very interesting question to think about. What does a hero do when they lose their mentor?
In all three stories mentioned above, the hero’s mentors help them find out who they are and help them grow into the person they are meant to be. Luke finds out he is a Jedi and Ben and Yoda teach him wisdom and control. Dumbledore helps Harry be a wizard and gives him comfort, guidance, and knowledge. Gandalf helps Frodo reach a destiny Frodo could never have imagined, he helps him take the journey he was meant to walk to Mordor. In all three there is guidance, teaching the mentee how to trust themselves, and most importantly there is love, the one necessary ingredient to make all things grow. Losing that source of teaching can be life-altering, definitely a jolt at least. It’s really hard to lose someone you’ve come to depend on, someone you’ve respected and treasured. You feel like you haven’t quite finished learning what they had to teach you.
A hero is usually not a hero when they lose their mentor; they’re still a student, a mentee, learning how to deal with the world they find themselves in, a world that is often strange and even rather frightening. But we can’t always remain a student. There comes a time when we have to leave the sheltered wings of another and learn to fly on our own. There comes a time when we have to realize we really do have everything we need within us, that we have something to teach as well.
What is it that we have to teach? What our mentors first taught to us. Though we lose them, they are still living in our hearts, in the choices we make, in the lives we live. Our mentors have invested themselves in our beings, loved us, took time with us, gave us their wisdom. They will always be with us. The best way we can honor them is to live out that wisdom, to let their love and support guide us on our way as we undertake new journeys. They themselves may be gone, but they have each left an imprint on our hearts that will continue to guide us. They can be the voices in our heads, the inspiration in our feet, the love that keeps us strong.
Our mentors have helped us find ourselves, they have helped us know who we truly are. So what do you we do when we lose them? We keep taking the journey, we keep walking the road we are called to, we keep putting one foot in front of another, learning and growing, remembering what they taught us and passing the blessing along to others. We become the hero we were meant to be, the one our mentors saw all along.
“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope [hero] inside yourself.”
Oprah Winfrey
365-09 #289