The little things will get us through

A little gesture can go a long way.

As I was washing my hands — this is a good time to remind everyone that we all should be doing that often, and thoroughly — before letting my dog Sammy inside and heading to pick up some lunch Saturday, my phone rang.

It was Dan Watson.

I was a little surprised to be getting a call from Dan, our county engineer, former mayor of Dunkirk and current member of the city’s board of works and safety, early on a Saturday afternoon.

But I answered.

He greeted me with a “How are you doing?”

We began to chat about our lives in the time of the coronavirus pandemic and resulting stay-at-home order. He said he’s been mostly staying in. He spends time with his family, including playing video games and taking walks with his son Jaiden. He goes to the Jay County Highway Department garage, where his office is located, to handle the duties that are necessary for work. But his routine is far from normal.

Mine, in the newspaper business, I shared, is probably closer to normal than most. I am in the office every morning to write the daily update story, put together pages and make sure the paper gets out on time.

But there are also a lot of differences.

Sports editor Chris Schanz and reporter Riley Eubanks have been told to work from home as much as possible. (Chris, since his return in early February, had already been doing a significant amount of his job from a distance.)

Our office is closed to the public. The front-desk conversations that are the everyday background noise of the workplace are gone.

And we’re being extra careful about staying 6-feet apart.

I do a lot more work from home in the afternoons.

It was then, after I had given my rundown of how life has and has not changed, that Dan made the comment that led to me writing this column.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been calling someone different every day to see how they’re doing.”

That is how we’re going to make it during this time of unnatural and unwanted isolation.

My conversation with Dan lasted less than five minutes. We didn’t get into any deep, philosophical topics. It was, by all accounts, nothing special.

But, in a way, it absolutely was.

It meant something to me that Dan had taken the time to reach out and see how I was doing. I’d call us friends, but not the kind of friends who have ever spent time together outside of work-related activities. (Ron Swanson of “Parks and Recreation” might call us “workplace proximity associates.”)

And Dan is calling someone new every day.

Think about that.

We’re officially a week in to our stay-at-home order, but the reality is that this has been going on much longer as we’re in our third week of no school, event cancellations and business closures.

We’ve still got, at least, another month to go until schools resume classes and we can expect the stay-at-home order to be extended.

It’s safe to assume that we’ll be in a shut-down mode of some kind for at least seven weeks.

Think about how many people Dan will reach out to over that period of time. Think about the lives he’ll touch.

Think about the impact it would have if each of the friends he calls does the same thing, checking in on one new person every day.

Think about how powerful it could be if each of us followed that example.

Those gestures of goodwill would spread faster than the coronavirus ever could.

We’re living in unprecedented times.

Our students are e-learning. We’re working from home. We’re avoiding gathering in public.

All of it is a challenge, without a doubt.

We can make it easier by reaching out as Dan did with a phone call, by sending a text message, by writing an old-fashioned letter. They’re all small, simple, easy gestures.

During what will undoubtedly go down as one of the biggest historical events in our lifetimes, it may well be those little things that get us through.