If I had known he was going to walk on the moon, I would have talked to him more

My father-in-law sat next to Neil Armstrong in the Purdue University marching band. Both he and Neil played baritone, kind of a fat trumpet. He recalls Neil as being somewhat quiet and shy. I asked my father-in-law recently, while he was struggling during his last days with cancer, what they talked about.

“Neil, I think that was a ‘G’ when it should have been an ‘E.’ Listen, if I had known he was going to walk on the moon, I would have talked to him more.”

And as I left his room at hospice a few days later and paused at the door on the way out, fairly certain that this would be the last time I saw him alive, I thought to myself. 

“Walking on the moon ain't got nothing on you.”

We under appreciate the heroism that is required to live an honorable life. Politicians might extol its virtue, but it always seems like yet another talking point. But those who have had the blessed privilege of being raised by someone like my father-in-law know that the ‘crown of a good name,’ as they say, trumps all other crowns. It should be the gold standard by which we measure heroism.

A simple man, a marine, a musician, and an artist who wrote poems for his wife each anniversary, who put three children through college working nearly seven days a week to keep his small business running. This is ‘The Right Stuff.’ This is the stuff that heroes are made of.

They don’t write epic ballads about the man who sold meat to grocery stores, or could whistle with two fingers, or carve penguins out of marble. They don’t dedicate highways and schools and build mountaintop monuments to those who made sure there was enough money for their kids to attend college or to support their dreams, but they should.

And as I left his room, I reached down and took his hand one last time and said:

“If Neil Armstrong knew what kind of hero you would become, he would have talked to you more.”

Dedicated to the memory of Jerry Fivel.

Dr. Louis M. Profeta is an emergency physician practicing in Indianapolis. He is one of LinkedIn's Top Voices and the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Patient in Room Nine Says He's God. Feedback at [email protected] is welcomed.