Because We Can All Be An Ordinary Hero

Yes. Me and you.

So simple.

We’ve all seen the meme that depicts a group of war veterans with the caption reading: our grandparents were called to war to protect our country. And below that, there’s a picture of a man who is lazily napping on his living room couch and the accompanying caption reads: all we have to do to save the human race is to lay on the couch.

Let’s not screw this up.

This literally made me laugh out loud.

So simple. Stay in the comfort of our homes. Eat what we want. When we want (well, maybe try to eat a little less), down a glass of wine or two...

Yet... yet...how could something so darn simple be so hard!

We are all part of history in the making... front row seats. Years down the road we will tell our children and grandchildren exactly where we were when the first plane hit the north tower and then the south, we will tell them About hurricane sandy and the mass blackouts and gas shortages that followed, and then we will tell them About a virus called corona.

By that time, corona will probably be something like chickenpox is now...a non-issue disease that every child is vaccinated for and parents don’t even think about anymore...

So it’ll be so strange when we reminisce with our grandchildren about how everyday was like a national holiday for months on end, except you couldn’t really leave your house or see anyone. People were fast becoming broke. Businesses were failing. People were panic stricken, sick and scared. And we will look back on those days and each of us will know the part that we played. Were we ordinary hero’s who stayed home, learned to wash hands, covered our cough (shouldn’t we have learned all that in kindergarten btw???) contacted someone who was not in our social circle, because we knew that they might need the human contact more than our closest girl friends, and perhaps reached out to a charity to help...or wrote a letter to an essential worker...

So when that child looks at us like an ancient mortal being, wide eyed and curious, that we lived through some of history’s most unique incidents, i hope they walk away with a lesson that I am still learning...

That after all the humans came out of their hibernation, they were different...because when the dust Had settled, all the people all over realized how very lucky we had been all along, how much we had always taken for granted, how very little we had needed to survive, how much earthly possessions we owned that rendered us no ease, safety or meaning, that in the hardest of times, the most important thing above all else was the deep human contacts that we had that sustained us through it all and our faith and belief that everything was going to workout (eve though that seemed like the last possible thing). All the people realized that this disease was the great equalizer and no one was immune, so they became a little more humble.

We are part of history in the making. Let’s make it count.