The Quiet Power of Our Everyday Lives

Nov. 27, 2020

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I’ve teared up twice in the last several hours. Not due to personal loss or sadness, but because of the quiet power of everyday humanity.

Last night, my tearful response came as I watched PBS NewsHour. For Thanksgiving, they devoted half the show to tiny documentaries about individuals we’ve lost to Covid-19. Judy Woodruff narrated the one-minute obits without introduction, opinion, or histrionics. They were short accounts of where they lived, what their vocations were, and what their lives meant to those who knew them. And, for a few, what their lives meant to those who didn’t even know them.

Most of these people weren’t stars or standouts. They were worker bees – cooks, teachers, hospital staff. Their stories are moving simply because of the way they lived each day. They went to work or volunteered, usually returning to unimposing houses. They inspired others, not with grandiosity, but with consistent decency, determination, and dependability.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/on-thanksgiving-remembering-those-weve-lost-due-to-covid-19

This morning I teared again, up watching a New York Times video documentary about a grandfather and grandson. Horace Bowers, the older fellow, is a self-made man, owner of a drycleaners. His grandson, 32-year-old Kris Bowers, is an award-winning pianist and composer.

We learn that Horace’s life, from a Southern tenant farm to LA business owner, set an example for Kris. In word and deed Grandad is clear that his people should live their own dreams, undeterred by limitations others might set. “Never think that you’re not supposed to be there,” Horace states quietly but unequivocally.

The Bowers individual stories are impressive, but their story, the grandfather-grandson story, is what spoke to my soul. There was a direct link between the older man’s quotidian decisions and his grandson’s impressive life decisions.

Neither the Bowers nor those lost to Covid-19 were saints. I’m guessing grandfather Horace spoke gruffly with tardy employees at least occasionally. Those nurses who died from covid-19 probably weren’t always kind with patients’ pushy family members or with their own worried spouses. Like us, they probably ran a red light or two and made other bad decisions.

My point is that, despite their foibles, they were heroes because of their routine actions and attitudes. My emotions overflowed because they were just you and I, people playing their best hands with whatever cards they had been dealt.