A Song for the UnSung
I gasped when he slipped on that patch of ice on the hiking trail. His body flipped in the air like a gymnast achieving an impossible feat. Unlike a gymnast, he landed directly on his hip. The one that had been replaced a few months prior. In an instant, we are nowhere but together in this moment.
We lock eyes; we both know the accident is serious.
We manage to find a way for him to lie in my lap. He is shivering more from shock than cold.
“How do I get help?” I scream inside myself. I am supporting his torso while he is squirming in pain.
At the top of the hill, I see a young man.
“Down here,” I yell.
He picks up his pace.
As he comes closer, peering down at us, he instructs, “Don’t move.”
I look up at the trail a second time. A young woman walks as fast as she can down the path, comes behind me, and wraps her arms around both of us awkwardly because of the steep incline on either side of the trail. It didn’t matter how awkward it was. It felt like a soothing balm.
“What happened?” she asks.
“He fell on that ice.” I point at it with my trembling finger.
“Call the ambulance, honey,” the man says deliberately and slowly to his companion.
“Will do,” she says, as she pulls out her phone from her back pocket.
Minutes feel like hours.
The young couple carves out a safe area on the trail as other hikers come along and attempt to gawk.
“Keep going, please. We’ve got this. Help is on the way.”
Five paramedics show up, lift him gently onto a stretcher and take him down the side of the steep hill, slipping and sliding as they go.
The three of us follow behind.
I am riveted on the medical team as they lift the stretcher up and into the back of the ambulance.
“You’ll have to follow behind,” a middle-aged woman commands.
“Okay,” I respond.
I turn around to thank the guardian angels from the trail.
They are nowhere to be seen.
Now months later, I want to say this to them, whoever and wherever they are:
I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know your names. I don’t know where you live. I don’t know anything about you, and yet I know everything about you because of how you ran towards us, not away from us.
This is my song for you.
Whoever listens to this song, I invite you to sing to the unsung in your own lives. There are so many unsung heroes in the fabric of our global story.
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