I got a Christmas card this week from one of the bravest people I know, a woman named Joan, she is in her 70’s, works every day at a home for the emotionally disabled, and then works nights baby-sitting and pet-sitting to take care of herself, pay off her late husband’s debt, and take care of her two young grand-children, who she took from her alcoholic and dysfunctional son to live with her. Joan’s husband died of colon cancer a decade ago, he was a farmer, he left no money, had no insurance.

This is not the life Joan expected as she reached her mid-70’s, it is not the life many of her friends have. She will perhaps never be able to retire, she won’t even think about it, her responsibilities extend beyond her ability to imagine her life.

I have never heard Joan complain, regret her life, wish that she had a condo in Florida as some of her friends do. She does say that her feet  hurt, and I got her a paraffin bath a year or so ago for her arthritic hands, she says it has helped and thanks me every Christmas. She walks on them all day and much of the night.

I have learned a lot in recent years about what bravery is. Many people told me I was brave when I left my life in New Jersey, bought Bedlam Farm, stocked it with cows, goats, dogs, sheep, cats and chickens, tractors and heat lamps, when I gave most of my money away to people I thought I was saving, when I left the “corporate” world behind for a life in the country, a life on a farm.  There is something very powerful about the hero journey, so many wish to take it.

I thought I was brave too, spending money I didn’t have, running away from a lifetime of emotional problems, hiding from a failing marriage, there is this endemic idea that if you do reckless and foolish things, you are braver than and superior to those feckless and ordinary souls – like Joan – who lead quiet loves of responsibility and commitment, who do not run from their problems, stay with their jobs,  flee to the country, buy things they cannot afford, bask in the cheers and adoration of the many well-meaning people who yearn to do the same and are manipulated by our self-serving stories.

I know now that I  was not brave, I was a coward, but I was soon to have my chance at bravery, at understanding what courage and strength really meant. It did not mean having everything I wanted, it did not mean living a life of fantasy, impulse and drama. I understood bravery when a therapist told me I was not married and I knew what I needed to do. When I decided to stop taking Valium after 30 years. When my understanding of being a writer collapsed in the recession and my identity as a creative person – my lifelong dream – was in question. When I realized I had to give up Bedlam Farm. When I grasped the central dishonesty of my life and set out to be  honest.

When I understand the commitment and strength required to learn intimacy and enter into a loving and equal partnership with another human being. When I opened up to the world after a lifetime of hiding. When I sent away the animals I could not know and afford to keep and kept the ones I could care for and know. I was not brave, but in some ways, I became brave, I came to understand what it meant.

It is not brave to run from your life or deny the truth of it, it is not brave to abandon people,  to live a loveless life, to hide behind the love of animals, to ignore the centrality of money and responsibility in our lives. it is not brave to shed the responsibility of being an authentic human being. Sometimes bravery means standing, not running, it means understanding what you cannot have as well as what you wish to have, it means listening to yourself, not feeding off of the yearnings of others.

Joan is brave, she is inspiring to me. She does what the needs to do, there is no recognition for her in the mundane world of humans. She will not go online to raise money for her life. In our culture, we think of heroes as people who charge into enemy machine-gun fire to risk their lives, as First Responders who run into burning buildings to save us, who faced crazed men with assault rifles. It is true, those people are brave.

But Joan is a hero too, and you will not see her on CNN or on the covers of any books. You don’t have to run off to a farm to be a hero, I think of all the silent people who take responsibility for their lives, pay their bills, work so hard in  jobs they don’t love, worry about the lives and concerns of other people. In our world, they are so often denigrated as weak, asleep, timid and frightened. They are living the hollow life, not the meaningful one. I’m not sure it isn’t the other way around sometimes.  These quiet heroes – they are all around us –  are among the bravest and most deserving people among us, even though there are no medals for them.

I am wishing them well this holiday season. I think I’ll buy a necklace for Joan and bring it to her for Christmas, and award it to her for valor and courage in the line of life.