COVID-19: The Unsung Heroes

What does essential mean to you? ‘Essential’ is subjective at the best of times. It’s helps define human rights. It helps raise the bar on benefits for those who need them. Right now, it defines who has to venture out of isolation every day and risk their lives to keep the world turning.

The Bare Necessities

Instinctively our minds turn to the frontlines: healthcare workers, grocery store workers and delivery service workers. The people keeping us alive, and keeping us fed. We clap for them everyday at 8pm (Colorado howls for some reason). We are aware of those heroes. I’m acutely aware of them, with a best friend who is a nurse, a cousin who’s an EMT (with two newborns he’s not allowed to see), and a father working for the NHS back in England. They are far away, out of reach, and frankly I couldn’t do anything to protect them even if I lived right next door. I worry about them and appreciate what they do, every day.

But those aren’t the only people we need to thank.

The Unsung Heroes

Warehouses are still full of underpaid employees, packing and shipping your parcels so we can continue to placate our boredom with online shopping. Vets are still making sure our beloved fluffy family members are healthy, even though they have no idea who could have touched them and buried their face in their fur, because god forbid any of us need something extra to worry about right now. Plumbers and electricians are still making sure our homes are safe to live in, without any guarantee that it’s a safe, corona-free environment for them to enter. Hell, in Colorado, dispensaries are deemed essential! All the people who work in cannabiz are still rolling so that the general population can float through COVID-19 on a cloud of green. Hundreds of thousands of heroes are working thanklessly in jobs you may scoff at being deemed ‘essential’.

Those are the everyday heroes I want to thank.

The Luxury of Quarantine

While we sit at home — working or not — and complain about the luxurious state of ennui in which we find ourselves, let’s consider the alternative. I don’t know about you, but every time I step outside my house I feel my stress level elevate a little. I put on my CDC-recommended mask, and wonder if it’s enough. What if this is the trip to the grocery store that gets me sick? Imagine feeling that way each day, and having to work through it: interacting with people daily, wondering whether your coworkers, customers, or suppliers are taking adequate precautions. Imagine having to go to your essential job and returning home to your family, not knowing whether you could have been exposed. Whatever job you do — if you’re hauling someone’s trash, or fixing someone’s boiler — you’re having to do it during the biggest crisis in our lifetimes. That’s heroic to me.

Showing Gratitude

With more time on my hands to consider the behind-the-scenes people keeping the world turning, I’m wondering if maybe we can learn from this and start paying workers fairly for the essential roles they play in society? Maybe, more likely, our ‘lessons’ end up fading into the ether as soon as we’re allowed to go back to our brunch dates and day jobs. For now, all I can do is try to spread a little good and show some appreciation for the under-appreciated: so thank you. Thank you for whatever sliver of normality, or glimmer of sanity you provide to the world. Thank you for persevering.

Spreading Appreciation

If you want to thank someone but don’t have the (excess of) words that I used to express it, feel free to share this and tag them in the post to let them know you’re thinking of them. The power of a kind word is — much like them — often underestimated.