Most days, I remember to say a prayer of hope and gratitude for my life and the lives of all my family members and friends, including the two sons who live with me, including a frightened sister who lives in COVID-19-ravaged New Orleans.
I feel grateful for the world’s health-care workers, including my nurse friend Emily, who leaves her 10-year-old asthmatic son in the care of his grandparents so she can tend COVID patients without fear of endangering her son’s life.
I remember to thank the people at the natural food co-op in town who bag and deliver groceries for me and my family twice a week, and all the people who grow, make, package, truck, stock, deliver and sort our food, household goods, medicines and mail.
I whisper a silent “thank you” when I see the clear-talking national infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci, who has his own bobblehead now, and Ohio’s state health officer Amy Acton, who has a Facebook fan page and a T shirt that says “Not all heroes wear capes.”
I applaud the leaders who listen to them.
In this global pandemic, I think of the scientists in the labs who are working in earnest on vaccines, virus detection tests and antibody tests.
I hold up the companies manufacturing hospital masks and gloves, gowns and ventilators as fast as they can, including those shifting their mechanization to make medical products.
I bow to the responsible journalists reporting 24-7 on COVID-19 from around the world, including the happy stories, especially the happy stories, like the one about the 104-year-old World War II veteran from Oregon who fully recovered from the virus.
I consider the teachers who’ve had to learn on the fly about Zoom classroom instruction, including those who’ve gone above and beyond, recording themselves reading stories online to young children.
I acknowledge small-business owners like my friend Rosi who just opened a restaurant in January, who offered take-out as long as she could, partly so she could keep people on payroll.
There are the visible heroes and symbols of a pandemic, whom we easily remember to acknowledge.
But then I think about those people who are not so visible.
And I wonder who is acknowledging them.
I think of my friends Nichole and Eric tending four young boys at home and all the untold numbers of parents trying to contain and entertain young children.
I think of the men and women trapped in abusive homes and of the abused and neglected children for whom school may have been their only refuge.
I think of the millions of others suffering in other ways — 24 million immune-compromised Americans afraid more than ever for their lives; people with PTSD and anxiety disorders triggered multiple times a day; people with disabilities afraid of discriminatory practices in hospitals; cancer patients risking exposure at health-care facilities so they can get treatment.
I think of the homeless man and the lonely widow.
And the conscientious millennial catching flak from his peers for practicing proper social distancing.
I think of all the people spreading cheer — children with sidewalk chalk; counselors and priests whose phones haven’t stopped ringing; anyone posting happiness, beauty, help and hope on Facebook, whether a picture, a poem, a free yoga class or an online concert.
I think, too, of those daring to express darkness to another. There is value in hearing someone else say, ‘I’m scared, too.”
Acts of outright heroism, especially inside our country’s hospital wards, are in front of us every day.
And then there are those among us, who are simply demonstrating, against all odds, the sheer human will to survive.
They are role models, too.
Theirs are acts of heroism, too.
And when I’m at my very best, I remember to pray words of hope and gratitude for them, too.
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(Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio, has been writing about family life since 1988. Visit her website at www.debralynnhook.com; email her at dlbhook@yahoo.com, or join her column’s Facebook discussion group at Debra-Lynn Hook: Bringing Up Mommy
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©2020 Debra-Lynn B. Hook
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