The happiness of being Lois Lane

I have watched you cry. I've seen the tears slowly roll down your face. Looked upon you as transparent pearls of empathy pool in your blue eyes and drop from your long eyelashes down on to your golden skin. Every story you've heard on the news, every tale of another hero, every life lost, I've seen you shed a tear. It's moved you. It's moved us both. It's moved the nation, the world.

You watch in admiration at the bravery of doctors and nurses risking their lives to save others. I see it in your eyes and the expression on your face that you marvel at the death-defying feats ofpeople you see helping others. Their selfless acts remind us that the sacrifice of the lost holiday, missed birthday celebrations and forgotten conversations in the pub are worth putting on hold.

These people are incredible - superhuman. Everyday heroes who while capeless still dress in a uniform that unites them clearly as one world-saving team assembled in every country to help protect. Medical gowns of blue, green, yellow and white replace the muscle-tight spandex of fictional flying comic book characters and remind us all of how good we can be.

But, yet I see, as you watch the TV you don't recognise yourself. I hear it in your voice as you turn to me and say,"aren't they incredible?" that you don't realise your part of the team too. In the last few months, I've come to realise that I am Lois Lane. I am Mary Jane. I am Pepper Potts. And my geek fanboy heart couldn't be happier than I too fell in love with a superhero.

While I have sat furloughed, fattening and motivationally flaccid in the last two months, I have been able to see you at work, truly at work. While I have remained at home consuming, you have gone out giving your time to give food to those who have needed it. Before lockdown, we never glimpsed each other's working day. But in the last few weeks, I have been able to stare directly into the secret bat cave of your work. I have begun to understand the magic that you weave, the tools that you use, the words of wisdom that you speak and the lives that you change. The commitment you have shown to your job and the dedication you give has inspired me to create, to craft, and most of all to carry on while covid-19 has robbed me of my opportunity and freedom to work.

It's easy to see the doctors and the nurses as the only heroes, but you're mistaken. They are everywhere. Some heroes don't know their powers. Like boy Clark on the farm in Kansas or boy Bruce before Alfred helped him you're a superhero who doesn't know her power, who doesn't yet understand the difference you are making and the potential you are creating.

In the last few months, heroes in so many settings have stepped up to make a difference. They don't have the camp comic book names but instead real titles that only now we are all beginning to understand the power of - midwife, paramedic, teacher, social worker, food chain worker, prison guard, street cleaner. Names that mean something. Names that make a real difference. Getting your superhero name is a big deal and becoming a part of ‘Team Key Worker’ is monumental. You have done that. Rise and fight Family Support Worker!

I had an idea of what your superhero name meant. I knew you worked with young people and their families. I knew you worked hard. I knew that you were helping people as a hero does. But now I know your true strength. Like the crowds that stare into the blue sky to see Superman fly by I now know who you are.

Every word of strength you offer, every considered thought and piece of advice you provide, every patient moment you listen to those who need support has inspired me. The Flash has speed. Cyclops shoots lasers from his eyes, Dr Strange bends time and space, but your power is to listen. The way you hear the challenges, the difficulties and the dilemmas of your service users and the way you help guide them is incredible. I don't know the intricacies of each person you support (client confidentiality is another secret power you possess) but I do know that the people you help need to be heard. They need to know that someone cares. The child who is severely struggling at school, the parents who feel like they can't cope, the single mothers, the widowers, the teachers under pressure you hear them all. You help them all.

The truth is, I have always known your secret power. I have felt its potential too. Every time you have listened to me as I have shared my pain. The snotty-nosed words I have cried out as I try to articulate the loss I feel every day since my Dad took his own life. You have heard it all from me: my hurt, my anger, my fear, my self-loathing and all my anxieties and yet always you manage to talk me down or lift me back up. In the grey twilight of what is our human existence, you manage to be the sun that rises every single day. Like the Human Torch burns, you are ablaze with passion and hope. You radiate the warmth and glow of how good humanity can be.

2020 is loud. Loud with voices of fear and hate, but there you are as one of many who listen. Listening is done in silence. It is always done in silence. There is no other way to listen than in silence. But yet people fear silence. They mistake it for disconnection, ignorance or worst of all, indifference. Silence is not that. Silence is the time when we hear. Only when we are silent can we listen to others and most of all listen to ourselves. Daily you demonstrate to me the power of a few seconds of silence over a lifetime of shouting.

As a boy, I dreamt of being Superman, but now I realise the happiness that comes with being Lois Lane. To love someone so incredible brings so much joy. But most of all, to be loved by someone who has so much strength helps me to fly too. Like Lois got to fly to the stars in the arms of Kal-El, so too do I in yours. Your power empowers me, and for that, I am truly happy.

I see you crying at the heroes you see on TV. I see you watch in admiration at the everyday heroes who are saving and changing lives all around the world. But you need to know; I cry for you. I cry love for you. You are one of those everyday heroes.

You help people.

You save people.

You saved me.

RJ (your real life alias), you are my everyday hero.

Like Lois loves Superman, I love you.