Last night, I downloaded the Godfather trilogy of movies which have been bundled by iTunes. I already own these movies on VHS, but the bundle was priced at $17.99, so the remastered digital versions were too good a deal to pass up.
As I watched the first of these films, it occurred to me that with all of the bravado on display: Sonny, Sollozzo (The Turk), Luca Brasi, Don Corleone himself, and many others, one of the most courageous characters in the movie was the easily overlooked Enzo the Baker.
A sense of gratitude prompted an unarmed Enzo to place himself into a dangerous situation.
“If there is trouble, I stay here to help you. For your father. For your father.”
Enzo stood in front of the hospital with Michael and played a dangerous game of chicken, as they bluffed the gangsters who had come to finish off the Don. His trembling hands gave away his nervousness, but he did his part just the same. This was not his quarrel, yet Enzo stuck his neck out when he didn’t have to. It would have been so much easier for him to simply walk away.
In a world of skepticism and self-interest it’s gratifying to be able to recognize and appreciate the many unsung heroes that are all around us.
Among these are the providers of child care who allow parents to make a living and those who care for our elderly. The people who perform these difficult tasks are heroes to the families who employ them.
You might say that those are just jobs, but they are more than that, and they should be valued accordingly.
If I do my job technically correctly, financial reports are in balance, but if I see my job in terms of how I can impact others, there’s much more that I can do. If the custodians of our very young and our very old perform their jobs in a caring manner, we’ll know that our loved ones are safe and secure, so we can turn my attentions to other matters.
In all of our interactions with others, we can choose whether to be detached or involved, closed or open, or annoyed or cheerful. The choices that we make determine how we view the world and how the world views us. Everyone can be a hero in his or her own way. Wearing a cape or a mask is optional.
There are many other jobs that fit into the unsung hero category: EMTs, teachers, police officers, and doctors. Those are the obvious ones, but there are other, more obscure, choices: road workers, waiters, maintenance workers, truck drivers, and crossing guards to name a few.
The list is endless.
Whatever it is that we do for a living, we can approach our days as if there is a little bit of Enzo the Baker in all of us. In all of our relationships, we can choose to take chances and not just play it safe. We can view our actions as interconnected bits that shape our experiences and the experiences of others.
Millions of heroes, each making small contributions, can be more effective than any single superhero, if superheroes actually existed.
So go ahead, step up to your next opportunity and show me your Enzo.
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Who are the unsung heroes in your life?
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Ray } – 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The term “unsung heroes” makes me think of the movie Unstrung Heroes starring Andie McDowell, John Turturro, and Michael Richards. If you haven’t seen it I would recommend it. It’s a good one.
Unsung heroes for me are homemakers. People who are willing to forego any monetary reward for their work to take care of a home and the children who live in it. These are usually parents but not always (think foster parents). Child care workers are important, as you mentioned. But I believe that a child is better off raised by parents than hired help. Studies have proven that children raised by a “stay at home” parent have more confidence and are better prepared for the real world. I realize that this ideal situation is not possible for every family but I believe more parents could reassess their family’s needs and choose to have one parent stay home. At a financial advantage, no less. That is my opinion.
Hi Tristan,
I’m not familiar with that movie, so I’ve looked it up and added it to my Netflix queue. I like John Turturro’s movies.
I saw someone tweet a rant about being called a homemaker this morning. I thought that that was an appropriate term, but maybe it has changed and escaped my notice.
We went the stay-at-home route and since my daughters are doing well, I guess that it was a good choice. Like you, I was always of the belief that the upsides outweighed the downsides, so I’m comfortable with the decision. However, rather than the all or nothing approach that we took, I now believe that some sort of middle ground would have worked well too. When the children are little, I feel that it is best to have one parent at home all of the time, but after they enter school, I think that it is beneficial to everyone if stay-at-home morphs into taking on a part-time job. That approach would help financially and provide an outlet to facilitate more interaction with other adults. This approach also eases the transition back to full-time worker status later on down the road.
That being said, I’d agree that being a stay-at-home mom is definitely an unsung hero’s task. Ray