Bette Midler - Wind Beneath My Wings - Yankee Stadium 2001, a short Essay about bravery

The highlight of one of many trips to New York I’ve made was watching Bette Middler perform her one woman show at Radio City.

She was a typhoon of an act, funny, strong , exhausting, and genuine 

Her smiling and brave performance at the 9/11 memorial is a tour de force of smiling bravely . 

Watch her singing in video. 

No self pity 

No emotional romping

She grabs the song’s importance by the scruff of the neck and delivers it with the broadest of smiles

It’s the bravest performance I’ve ever seen. 

And it galvanised a nation and part of the world.

I see such bravery every day. 

The daughter of a patient who refuses to back down in her advocacy 

The friend who is facing cancer again who shoots out with a sassy comment with steel blue teary eyes

Another friend who sees their spouse fading, raising their chin to all observers 

A lonely person who joins a village group without self pity,

An old Welsh terrier, refusing to bow to semi blindness

Mr Posňan walking all the way to the village hall to check the building works despite the pain in his hips

A villager who has endured 100 eye injections without ever complaining to the internet audience

We all see such bravery every day

That urge and need to set one foot in front of another

To march on