If you met your hero, what question would you ask?

Meeting your hero comes with a degree of risk. We have bestowed that hero label on them based on our small window into their world. Everybody has light and shadow in their character; it is what makes us human. Some of the more powerful superhero films have given the central character fallibilities, and the best literature delivers on the Byronic hero, who is endlessly attractive despite the darkness of the soul.

So, I name my hero with trepidation. And, if it were possible to ask her my question, I would do so tentatively. How likely is it that she would answer in the same pristine way she crafted texts I had read before I met her?

My hero is Maya Angelou. I have two black and white cats; one is called Maya, and the other Angel. I have a tattoo on my left arm that reads, “But still, like air, I’ll rise.” It is a tribute to how I rose out of my challenges and is a celebration of the resilience of my human spirit. My love of language finds great beauty here – the two-syllable cadence and the beat of the commas that leads to the pitch of my voice rising with the final word, “rise” – astonishing.

And what question would I ask her?

I have a thousand and one questions about writing that I could have asked her. To find mastery in language the way she did is my lifelong journey.

I have many questions about her life. As part of my degree, I did my Year 2 literature study on her autobiographies. I began with Why the Caged Bird Sings and continued. My tutor only expected me to read one. I read them all. And I wrote about them all. And I got a much lower mark because of this, though I didn’t care. I passed, only just, and I loved my uncritical, non-evaluative love letter to her writing.

Decisions like this meant I didn’t get a first in my degree – though I knew it was because I had been influenced by some of Maya Angelou’s pirate spirit and didn’t want to fit in those boxes. I have many questions about this spirit, too, so I can emulate it even more.

Yet, I have been given one question and only one. What could it be?

It comes down to the confusion that greets me each time I read her words. It is a quality that makes me shake my head and wonder – and with no ability – yet - to find the answer for myself.

The question:

How, despite all the suffering endured at the hands of other people, could she remain optimistic about the possibilities of the human spirit?

Maya Angelou experienced great injustice and violence throughout her life. She lived with prejudice in a way I can never appreciate – a sense of otherness that must have been like an anchor as she swam through life. And yet, she imbued human beings with such possibilities for doing the most unique acts. She still believed in us as a species and our compassion and kindness.

I have a book of her quotations that I read when I am losing my faith in people. I must fill myself up, as though eating or drinking, to keep myself sustained. I glance at her words when disappointed and shake my head at the pitiful spite and malice. When angered by greed and thoughtlessness, I let my eyes dance across her poetry and feel the song of a heart forged in suffering that still found love for others – even her attackers.

For me, a hero guides you towards the person you aspire to become. I desire to see beauty and write beautifully. So, I continue to ask myself daily how I can see the good in people and find hope when things feel hopeless. I am doing much better than I did, as some of her answers about forgiveness and gratitude are beginning to chime with my older self.

I have much further to go in this journey to living like my hero.

I want to leave the last words to Maya Angelou, as it seems fitting:

“I’ve learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”