The Heroes We Forgot to Sing About

A while ago, I asked a friend how things were going.

How was work?

How was the family?

How was life?

He laughed and replied, "Family is farming on me."

I laughed too.

Then he added, "Plenty bills to handle. Appreciating my daddy more now."

The conversation moved on, but the words stayed behind.

Family is farming on me.

What a sentence.

Behind the humour was a reality many people know intimately.

School fees.

Rent.

Medical bills.

Food.

Transport.

Unexpected emergencies.

Expected emergencies.

The endless procession of responsibilities that seem to arrive just as the last one leaves.

As children, many of us saw our parents as providers.

As adults, some of us are beginning to discover what that actually means.

We are beginning to understand the mathematics of sacrifice.

The quiet calculations.

The things they went without so that someone else could have enough.

The dreams postponed.

The luxuries declined.

The burdens carried silently.

And it is not only fathers.

Some mothers carry entire households on their backs.

Some eldest children quietly became second parents years ago.

Some siblings became the family's emergency fund.

Some relatives became the person everyone calls when life goes wrong.

Many of these people are not thriving.

Some are barely coping.

Some are carrying debts nobody knows about.

Some cannot remember the last time they bought something simply because they wanted it.

Yet every morning they wake up and return to their posts.

Not because it is easy.

Not because they have excess.

But because someone is depending on them.

We celebrate heroes who save cities.

We applaud heroes who build companies.

We admire heroes who stand on stages.

Meanwhile, countless heroes are standing in supermarkets calculating costs, stretching salaries, paying fees, settling bills, and somehow keeping a smile on their faces.

Their capes look suspiciously like responsibility.

Today, perhaps we should do something simple.

Call them.

Text them.

Thank them.

Nothing elaborate.

Nothing poetic.

Just a quiet acknowledgement that we see them.

Because carrying a family is often thankless work.

And the people doing it deserve to know that somebody noticed.

The heroes among us do not always wear capes.

Sometimes they wear responsibility.

And they wear it every single day.

Nugget: The heroes among us do not always wear capes. Sometimes they wear responsibility.