My Hero, My Hubby

As Father's Day approaches, there's no question about the hero in my life--my husband. Yeah, he has the requisite physical requirements of a romance hero: tall and built (about 6' 2", 200 lbs.), muscular (runs and lifts weights), has gorgeous light blue eyes (on our first date, I asked him if he wore blue contacts!), and physical (he's a black belt in Aikido). He's also smart - super high IQ, majored in journalism at USC, is very knowledgeable about politics, and speaks fluent Spanish. But those aren't the main reasons why he's heroic to me - rather it's his character.

The reason he's fluent in Spanish is because after he graduated from USC, he joined the Peace Corps. At first he was sent to El Salvador to help a small, rural town with agriculture. Within a year of his arrival, the revolution broke out and the Peace Corps had to pull out its people. My husband volunteered to be sent somewhere else in Central America, so he went to Honduras. When his Peace Corps stint was over, he stayed on in Honduras for a few years and taught English to kids in rural areas.

When he returned to the U.S., he thought it would be interesting to be a cop. He already had a non-law enforcement job, so he volunteered as a reserve police officer. So for no pay, he worked patrol and later worked in the juvenile and sex crimes bureau. He also spent three summers working for the California Dept. of Justice in their CAMP program (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) in northern California. Later he decided to pursue a career in law enforcement.

My husband has always been attracted to work that is meaningful and does good for other people. Most people think of cops as rounding up bad guys and being on the punishing end of law enforcement, which they are. What most people forget is that cops also spend a lot of their time helping people - for every criminal, there's a victim. And it's the cops' jobs to reassure these victims and promise them justice.

My husband is honest and trustworthy and a good example for our two boys. I'll never forget one time when we were leaving a movie theater through a side exit. A man with a backpack was waiting by the side door, and grabbed the door as we exited to enter the theater without paying for a ticket. My husband grabbed the man's backpack and pulled him backward, letting the theater door shut, and asked him, "What do you think you're doing?" The man sort of shook him off and said, "What are you, a cop or something?" My husband responded that he was. LOL

I'm so lucky to have found my own true hero. When my husband discovered he had a blocked artery last summer and had to go in for an angioplasty, I freaked out but it was my turn to be heroic. I reassured him, I comforted him, I supported him. I let him vent and express his fears. In the end, the procedure went well and my big, strong guy is now a vegan!

Whenever our friends and acquaintances find out I write romance, they always jokingly ask if my husband is supposed to be the hero in my books. I always laugh and respond that each of my heros is different. But you know what? Every one of my heros has a little bit of my husband at his core because my husband is one of the good guys!

Happy Father's Day to all those heroic dads out there!