What Does it Mean to Be Brave?

brave [breyv] adjective brav-er, brav-est. possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance.

Before I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, I never thought about such things. Brave people were mostly warriors in sci-fi movies who fell on their swords to save nations. Or they were dying people in human interest stories who made lasting impacts before they passed.

They weren't people I knew, and they certainly weren't me.

Then suddenly people started talking about being brave. Even my niece, whose husband was deployed, started wearing a necklace that said, "Brave" on it.

And I thought, there's no such thing as being brave. If you have to take the next step and it leads you through a swamp, you simply take the next step because you don't have the option to just stop. There's no bravery there.

That's how I viewed my disease. I'm not brave for walking through it, because, really, what choice do I have? You have to have a choice in the matter before someone could call you brave. And I made light of the whole concept of bravery. I believed bravery was not a valid label for anyone to wear.

Then one day the fog lifted somehow and I understood: Brave isn't the action; it's the attitude behind the action.

In other words, it's how you face adversity, not whether you face adversity. We all face trials; that's not being brave. Being brave is facing them with courage, strength, grace, and peace.

Suddenly, I have new respect for the word brave. Suddenly, it's a valid, personal label. Suddenly, I want to be brave in my disease, brave in my writing, brave in life.

Yes, I want to be brave.