The Other Heroes Rolling the World

However unexpected and involuntary…

When the lockdowns began, the idea of ‘Stay at home’ was meant, supposedly, for anyone who could, but specifically for those whose jobs were non-essential. This ‘essential’ meant, primarily, doctors and nurses who can’t do home-office, of course, and that everyone else must remain locked down.

Aha! Sure!

Hospital professionals deserve every bit of our respect, indeed. However, this piece, in fact, is meant to honor and acknowledge all the other essential workforce without which the world wouldn’t have kept rolling and rolling for a solid year.

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”

— Arthur Ashe

How about the drivers of all sorts? Of ambulances, yes, but also of all the public transportation who have kept taking people and goods from place A to B. We have continued eating because the shelves in supermarkets have not been empty. And this brings to mind farmers and fishermen and butchers, and all the people involved in producing food. And home supplies? At least in my city, there has not been a scarcity of almost anything because there were people still going out into the danger and producing vital goods.

Supermarkets and drugstores have not closed at all anywhere, and that means a lot of people making sure that there was enough stock on display, others selling, charging, cleaning, day in and out, no matter what, regardless of the level of alert in each place each month of this journey. The same goes for all the public service people — water supply, gas supply, garbage collection, police officers, firefighters, electric systems — that have kept the world rolling, I insist. What about bank clerks? Gas stations? Mechanics? Plumbers?

Delivery people have been more than helpful to get through this, especially for people that cannot go out — due to illness, comorbidities, fear, or lack of cars. Some businesses have finally thrived: you can buy anything online, but beyond your computer, there’s somebody delivering it; several individuals along the line, really, to fulfill your very needs.

The list of heroes is extense. I’m not romanticizing them, though. Of course, they didn’t mean to be heroes: they simply had to go out there and work to make a living, I know. They don’t regard themselves as so. They just couldn’t afford to be afraid and cautious and stay in, could they?

Teachers have not gone to schools, but their home-office has been, on the one hand, the most excruciating there is because, on the other, the responsibility they have on their shoulders is the biggest, heaviest, deepest, most called for, and most long-lasting. Excruciating because these poor fellas are working endless shifts, available and pulled and stretched from all ends — students, parents, authorities — and because just one year ago what they're doing was regarded as non-viable, truly. Even if the technology was in place already, the mindset was not.

All the other adjectives that follow my description of their task are so not because they’re ‘teaching’ and saving the day (the year actually) but because they’re saving a whole generation of kids by containing them. The parents going bananas at the other end have done their share, of course, but the teachers have made do and managed — whatever they have managed — from the distance, through a virtual medium, reinventing themselves almost from scratch and along the road.

My niece has taken hip-hop classes for about four years. My sister has told me that the online classes have been about dancing, yes, and about keeping fit, sure. Mostly, though, the amazing teacher of my niece’s has provided listening and caring, guidance and containment during these challenging times. That has been her priority, not hip-hop. That has only been the excuse. A real teacher and mentor, she is.

Me, having been a mother and a teacher, I take off my hat for her.