Unsung
04/20/2020
Outside
my mother’s assisted living here in Charlevoix are signs that say, “Heroes Work
Here” I noticed them set up like the old Burma Shave signs along the busy
highway as I turned into the parking lot.
All of
the doors are locked now at American House. An Alexa Ring door alert
blue-lighted iris circles the clear lens of the camera watching the entry. A
warning sign cataloging the restrictions is fixed to the door. Pressing the
doorbell, a merry chime sounds. The wait
is indeterminate. “Keeper of the gate” is a duty added to the already busy
staff. The heavy door clunking open
always startles me. A hand sanitizer
container stands silent century while my temperature is checked and paper work
attesting to the lack of any symptoms is filled out and signed.
Once
inside, I am reminded of an empty church or funeral home without mourners or
the smell of flowers for the quiet yet pregnant silence.
Today,
Leslie is my admitter. She is the
activities director of which there are none.
Most are cancelled. No bingo, or outings, the dining areas is closed
while residents are served meals in their rooms and eat alone. Leslie and I
exchange pleasantries, we are both “fine.”
Only our eyes are visible above our masks. Mentioning the hero signs out front, she
glumly replies, “I don’t feel like a hero.”
Leslie went her way and I went mine, to room number 4. It’s shower day for my 95 year old, wheel
chair bound mother. I’m a nurse, who
happens to be a family member. That’s my
lucky ticket in to an environment where people have not been allowed visitors
in weeks.
At 10:30
there’s a knock on my mom’s door and it’s Leslie. “Janet, time for exercise.”
Residents
move to chairs outside their doors and safe distances from each other. Leslie starts into the arm exercises with
weights in a drill sergeant voice. She’s
at the end of the long hall with a microphone and speaker. The short session ends with leg marching and
singing Oh, When the Saints Go Marching In.
I come close to crying with the irony of it all.
Heroine
implies heroics, brave action in a time of need. However, unsung reminds me of the question,
“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a
sound?” Unsung, unrewarded,
unrecognized. This pandemic has an army
of souls who risk their lives, some because they have chosen but more because
they must. It is the job that feeds
their families and pays the bills. It is a profession or career chosen while never
imagining the danger. Hired as an activities director, now Leslie is the resident life guard for her beloved residents.
Yesterday,
a Raven dropped down like a black parachute to the ground beside the bird
feeder visible from my kitchen window.
This was the first time I had seen a raven so close. A black beauty, sleek and gleaming in the
morning sun strutted, pecked and tilted her head in silent queries before
taking off in graceful flight, body tilting through the close stand of
pine. In the reverie of the moment, I
thought of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem and the Raven’s reply, “Nevermore.”
Nevermore
will the world be the same. Our unsung
heroines such as Leslie are reluctant heroes caught in something new and
bewildering but requiring brave action or brave forbearance or brave
imagining. Nevermore will I sneeze or
hear a cough and not think of my own mortality.
Tomorrow,
I will thank Leslie. And all the unsung heroes that walk and breathe and work
among us; the transit workers, health care professionals, clerks at pharmacies,
hardware stores and groceries, police and emergency responders.
How will
it end? When will it end? How will we all be different or the
same? When Leslie said, I don’t feel
like a hero, her eyes were weary as if they could see a long difficult road
ahead.
