“We Never Close:” Open on Christmas and New Years Day – By Carmelene Melanie Siani

Happy Holidays, I recently said to the woman on the mat next to me when yoga class was over.

“I’ll try,” she said, “But I work on holidays.”

“Gosh,” I responded. “That can be tough.”

“It’s all right,” she offered. “At least the people who work two part time jobs like me have a place to do their last minute shopping.”

What a generous attitude, I thought, knowing that I’d run into a grocery or drug store at the last minute on a holiday many times, fully expecting someone—like my yoga friend—to be there behind the counter to wait on me.

I remember when no one worked on Holidays and nothing was open. But that was generations ago in another world.

“We’ve lost our Sundays, our weekends, our nights off-–our holy days, as some would have it—our bosses, junk mailers, and even our parents can find us wherever we are, at any time of day or night. More and more of us feel like emergency-room physicians, permanently on call, required to heal ourselves but unable to find the prescription for all the clutter on our desk.”

~ Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere

Today, in our rush to madness, to having more and to having it now, we have come to expect that what we need and/or want is available to us 24/7—even on our so-called Holidays. It’s easy to forget that there are real flesh and blood people who are working at their jobs on days they would like to be home celebrating with their families too, just like us.

I don’t take that kind of thing as much for granted as I used to and today I appreciate all those who work on Holidays.

They truly are the ones that keep the small stitches together so that the whole piece doesn’t unravel.

Some of course, don’t have a choice. They are simply doing what the job entails, or they need the extra income, or they have other reasons of their own, but for me, I appreciate that they are there, no matter why.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s almost as if they work so that I can have leisure and I feel a debt of gratitude towards them.

To Those Who Work on Holidays…

Thank you for

watching over buildings

cleaning offices

and stocking supermarket shelves.

Thank you for staffing power stations

for driving taxis, buses and trains,

for flying airplanes over the cities,

for x-raying baggage

and for cleaning public bathrooms.

Thank you for

working in hospitals

and for being on call.

Thank you for

working in convenience stores for our convenience and

in gas stations so that we can get where we are going

For working in subway stations

and in stations of any kind

that must be kept open

so that the life of the city can thrive.

Thank you for the workers who

are all round us,

serving us what we ordered in restaurants,

ringing up cash registers for the last minute gift we bought

and keeping the traffic lights on for us

Thank you for

driving ambulances,

police cars

and fire engines

and for making sure that

if there is an accident

we will be transported and cared for

just as if there was no such thing as a Holiday.

We all need you.

We cover the city and elsewhere with our gratitude for you.

We have radical thanks in our hearts

for all of you who are working

while some of us are home

having our Holidays without you.

missing you

and wishing you were here.

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Author Bio: Carmelene Melanie Siani

Carmelene writes stories from every day life and how life itself offers lessons to help us grow, expand, and put our feet on higher ground.

https://www.facebook.co/StoryBelly/

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