An Applause for Essentials

If one spends enough time reading about coronavirus, one will have spotted a handful of articles, meant to be uplifting but also likely to make you cry, about how denizens of the hard-hit countries of Spain and Italy do a nightly round of applause for their essential workers. New York City started doing the same on Friday. I had seen on Twitter earlier that day that the two-minute applause would start at 7 pm. I promptly forgot about the applause by the time I was taking Boo Boo to the park at 6:50.

As we were walking up the hill to the park’s entrance I noticed more people than usual sitting on their stoops, and some hanging out on their fire escapes. One woman was looking out the window. The only odd thing about this was that it’s not summer yet. I fixated on the older woman. I wondered what she was looking at or if this was simply how she was enjoying some fresh air while self-isolating. Then she started clapping her hands. The people on their stoops were also clapping, and the people on their fire escapes had brought out pots and pans that they were banging with spoons.

Boo Boo stared at the crew on the fire escape. It was not dawning on him that this was something special, for he bangs on pots and pans all the time. Nor did he think twice about me stopping en route to the park and clapping from the sidewalk while he waited patiently in the carrier.

The applause was at its loudest when a delivery cyclist rode by. He had probably been too busy delivering food to have read about the planned tribute–a long overdue tribute that should not have had to wait for a pandemic to hail the folks who ride through blizzards, rain, and oppressive heat to deliver meals to people unwilling or unable to cook for themselves. He only looked up from the task at hand when people started shouting THANK YOU to him. He saw the crew assembled at the fire escape and smiled.

I smiled and also cried. I cried because now we were doing this it meant our outbreak was on par with that of Spain and Italy, and I smiled because how could you not.