Heroes’ Path

There are days when the world forgets itself.
Streets fill with noise. Hands tremble with devices.
The names of the steady ones are no longer spoken.
Their words gather dust in attics,
buried with medals, photographs,
letters that once crossed oceans.

Yet they lived.
And they did not live for nothing.

They were teachers in threadbare rooms,
nurses who stood between pain and mercy,
laborers who kept the lights on,
soldiers who returned from silence
to plant trees, repair fences,
and teach children how to endure.

Their greatness was quiet,
like frost in the morning,
like the way a river wears down stone.

We did not invent virtue.
We found it—
in stories of famine and fire,
in lives shaped by discipline and kindness,
in sacrifices made without witness.

So we made a place.
Not a temple,
but a path.

A path where the living learn from the dead,
where courage is not shouted but studied,
and where each traveler carries only
what truth they are ready to hold.

We called it Heroes’ Path.
A school for the soul.
A ledger of deeds that are not forgotten.
A map drawn in scars and service.

It is not for veterans alone,
but for anyone who has wept and gone on.
For anyone who has failed and tried again.
For the mother with no time.
For the apprentice.
For the man on the night shift.
For the girl who wonders if she matters.

There are no sermons here.
Only questions.
Only the next step.
Only the weight of your own name
carried through time
with care.

—John Fenzel, July 2025