Thank you, unsung heroes. And thank you to the few whose praises we will sing here, not because they are unique but because they aren’t.
Stars and Stripes is making stories on the coronavirus pandemic available free of charge. See more staff and wire stories here. Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter here. Please support our journalism with a subscription. DETROIT (Tribune News Service) — Remember when the toilet paper shelves at supermarkets were stripped and empty by 9 a.m.? Someone had been up until dawn filling them and would do it again as soon as the doors closed. Someone we never saw, and never had the chance to thank. So thank you. Thank you to the workers handing coffee out the drive-thru window to the power plant workers who were making sure the lights stayed on at the drugstores where the pharmacists filled prescriptions for the truck drivers whose kidneys had taken a million miles of pounding. Thank you to the cooks who made the pizzas that the teenagers delivered to the houses of the weary operators of the hulking washers that cleaned the sheets that the overburdened hospitals churned through every day. Here in Michigan, we are one year and more than 600,000 cases and nearly 16,000 deaths into the worst pandemic in more than a century. We have seen banners in front of medical buildings proclaiming « Health Care Heroes Work Here, » and yes, they do. But heroes work or volunteer at countless places, and not only do we not know their names, we often don’t know where they are or what they do. So thank you, unsung heroes. And thank you to the few whose praises we will sing here, not because they are unique but because they aren’t. Kameka Hayman stayed on at her job at a hospital when others were leaving, and found a way to make it more than it needs to be. Katie Monaghan, Elizabeth Griem and Shar Clark have been helping older citizens find doses of vaccine, enlisting dozens more volunteers who call themselves « Vaccine Angels. » Rachel Lutz found thousands of masks when even the government was getting hustled by charlatans, and she owed it to her taste for tiaras. Thank you to them. Thank you to the others who take a brief turn in the spotlight here. And thank you to everyone else, for what you’ve done in a time of need or what you might decide to do now. More than clean Housekeepers were quitting at Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn. One only lasted two days. Kameka Hayman admits she was concerned, too. It was early April, and the pandemic was at its rabid worst. But across two decades in the environmental services department, she said, she had come to realize that cleaning is only part of what she does. Maybe it’s not printed in the job description, but she’s also connecting. « Nobody wants to be here, » said Hayman,43, of Warren. None of the patients, anyway, in the oncology ward where she usually works or the COVID-19 floor where she was pressed into action amid the first frightening surge. So Hayman smiled at them. Talked to them. Treated them as though they were guests, not threats. « She’s always positive, » said her supervisor, Willie Barford, even when everything else is negative. Hospitals were desperate for masks and gowns in those early days. Medical staffers were contracting the disease from patients. Visitors were forbidden, as they still are for patients with the coronavirus. Still, Hayman said, « You don’t want anyone to feel like you’re afraid of them. You don’t want anyone to feel like they’re alone. » Wearing hospital scrubs over her nursing-style uniform and a medical gown over her scrubs, she’d draw a smile while she wiped bleach-dipped cloths over every surface she could reach. Nurses were actually doing much of the cleaning in the worst of times, to limit the number of people exposed to COVID-19. Housekeepers were called in by patient request, and the requests for Hayman often became more wide-ranging. Could she meet a relative at the front entrance to collect a favorite bar of soap or a crossword puzzle book or a pizza? Of course. « The main thing you can do, » she said, « is make it better for them. » Before Hayman came to Beaumont, she managed a fast-food restaurant, where « I was tired of getting cussed out.
