This is a eulogy for a fallen hero.

He was a renaissance man; a writer, an artist, a philosopher. I had been so fortunate to know him. We met in a computer class my freshman year in high school. He was a dirty blond vision in baggy pants and he sat right next to me.

We got to know each other. He showed me his stories, his sketches. He told me of his ambitions: he was going to graduate and become a Marine. I was in awe of him. He was everything that I thought to be amazing. We grew apart, he had his following of sycophantic girls and I had my classes but I still held him in very high regard.

Then one day as I was browsing an amateur fiction collection I noticed that he had posted some of his poetry. I read it. And then I read it again. Slowly, agonizingly, over every single word.  

That moment of disillusionment, it stays with you forever. A slow-motion replay of heart-wrenching pain.

It sucked.

His poetry sucked. Its attempts at rhyme and meter were thoroughly botched. The similes were clichés. There were errors everywhere. Pure drivel, the whole thing.

Oh, how my hero fell from that mighty pedestal that I had made for him. Like a cannon ball, like a fiery meteor, like Icarus. Leaving me in the left over destruction, in the massive crater, littered with wax and little white feathers.

This is a eulogy for a fallen hero.

No. This is a eulogy for all the fallen heroes and oh how many there are! This is for the celebrity who chose infamy over fame. For the religious leader who lost his way. For the activist who just gave up.

This is a eulogy for the doped up Olympian, the corrupt politician, the cheating CEO, and the absent parent. For all those that we thought were gods and otherwise upstanding gentlefolk. For those who we respected and admired. For all those who then let us down.

This is a eulogy for the fallen heroes. But I want it to be so much more.

I want to tell you that they are to blame for the heart-breaking disappointment. But that’s not true because we are the ones who stared up at them with starry-eyed fascination. We are the ones who fooled ourselves into blissfully blind adoration. We are the ones to blame if our grand expectations weren’t lived up to.

So I have a proposal. Let us see men as men, not gods. Let us embrace their imperfections and not curse the day they were born when they falter. Let’s not ruin them by idolizing them because, sooner or later, idols prove to be false.

This is a eulogy for the fallen heroes and an invitation to the truth.