by Anne Donlon Achenbach, 05/08/2020, traverse City, MI

Adult Category

When it’s over

Because eventually it will be

Who will be the heroes?

Will the firefighters and EMT workers receive accolades of glory? Will songs be written about their valor?

Will the medical staff of hospitals now putting their own well being at risk be rewarded with ticker tape parades?

Will the countless blue collar workers who manned grocery shelves and delivered Amazon boxes be given a standing cheer and presented laurel wreaths?

Will the new heroes be the pharmacist and delivery person who kept our medications available?

Will we remember their silent service to humanity?

Will they be the ones remembered?

Will the hitherto unknown faces and voices that kept us alert and aware on both TV and internet be forgotten? They have not abandoned America to the perils of silence or the discomfort of seclusion.

Will uniformed postal workers, as well as the backbone staff of trains, planes and uber drivers become new celebrities? Will we greet them with a smile and a kind word?

Will all the once so-called “ordinary” men and women now performing extraordinary tasks with heroism become those we eulogize? Will their selfless courage be written in history books? Will they have monuments in parks across the land?

Will America allow the trivia of everyday life to wipe out their gift to our world when it returns to normalcy?

Will those who survive permit anyone to forget the unsung heroes and heroines of 2020?

I don’t believe that will happen, and

I hope you agree.