I pondered all morning today this essay on the long-haulers by Ann Finkbeiner.

She writes of a bean seller that did his job faithfully for decades, the void it created when he died, and the people that came together to help finish his job.

These gritty and persistent long-haulers simply go about their chosen life and their chosen tasks without a wavering thought.

May I be counted among the one day…

She says:

But these long-haul people, they find a thing they want to do, that needs doing, that they do well, and they do it for the rest of their lives. We adore our flashing heroes, but these long-haulers we deeply love. I think they seem necessary to our continuance as a society, that human communities are worth the effort. I think they’re necessary to our sense of meaning as humans, that we ourselves are worth the effort. We count on these people, they’re keeping it all going, the only thing stopping them is death.