But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

From “Middlemarch” by George Eliot

George Eliot’s elegant prose calls attention to our fellow man’s  contribution to our personal joy : “the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”  We should sometimes honor these unsung heroes and heroines. This reminds me of the first paragraphs of a Cuban refugee’s biography, which I have yet to publish: “As a young woman she had left the island seeking freedom and had since faced severe challenges. It was easy to be a fake revolutionary wielding a gun to suppress the free will of your countrymen. But it was much harder to be a real fighter doing what she had done day after day. Her life stood as a monument to Cuban tenacity.  History books had not recorded it because she had lacked political ambitions and tortured or killed no one. Yet, her anonymity would be an irreparable loss for us all.”