Take a Moment for the Helpers

President Harry S. Truman

These are indeed the times that try men's souls.  Presently, we not only do not know whether light exists at the tunnel's end, we cannot even yet calculate the tunnel's length. We might be low enough to question whether light, once we are close enough to see it, is in fact a new day's dawn or merely the front end of an onrushing locomotive.  

If you awakened this morning to discover that you and those you love most of all in this world are healthy and safe, then stop lamenting your situation.  Take a moment, just a moment, to think of those who are not as fortunate.  Too often, when confronted with a crisis, we the people of these United States think only "big picture".  We commit to memory how many people die as if an event's effect is measured solely by its mass-casualty statistics. 

Let all of us, today, who have not lost a loved one to COVID-19, consider that there is no "big picture" without the countless "little pictures" that comprise it.  This disease infects and kills people.  It kills individuals.  Those who die are not statistics.  Each is a person whose loved ones grieve her or his death, a grieving process exacerbated by the fact that as their loved one approached death, he or she did so alone. 

Let all of us, today, who have not lost a loved one and who also still have a job, which job allows us to work safely from our home, spend a moment or two appreciating those whose jobs afford no such luxury.  Of course, that number includes the medical professionals battling on the front lines.  Women and men who make an extraordinary sacrifice at their place of work every day.  More than that, though, those who also have foregone the comforts of home while fighting this fight out of concern of allowing the beast against which they battle at work to gain access to their homes and their families. 

That number also includes the men and women who deliver our mail; those who deliver packages ordered from Amazon, etc.; those who work in supermarkets, restaurants, and other "essential" businesses; those who pick up our garbage and recycling; those who work for our various public utilities to ensure that water, electricity, and heat are available at a switch's flick; those who manufacture vital goods, from paper towels to PPE and from hand sanitizer to ventilators; the truckers; and, of course, the men and women who put on a uniform daily as members of our local, county, state, and federal network of first responders.  

Countless men and women run towards danger as opposed to away from it.  They do it every day. They do it not simply because it is a job. They do it because it is a calling.  When we get through this crisis and we finally emerge on its other side, may we never forget all that each of them does and shall do for each of us.  

We shall never be able to repay the debt owed.  But we sure as hell can thank them.  And we should.  

Every day. 

-AK