OPINION: The true heroes in the fight against the coronavirus

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Editor's Note: In a series of essays called "The Distance," Thomas Lake tells stories of Americans who experienced the pandemic. If you have a story to share send an email to thomas.lake@cnn.com. The opinions expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author.

(CNN) - They were going to a dangerous place and most or all were smiling: 29 healthcare workers on a plane from Atlanta to the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic in New York. It was Friday, March 27. They made heart symbols with their fingers. A ramp agent took a photo of them and Southwest Airlines posted it on Instagram. By the following Tuesday, when the image had circulated online, at least one of the passengers was on the verge of tears.

"I'm very scared," a nurse named Letha Love told me by phone from a Manhattan hotel shortly before leaving for another night shift to treat coronavirus patients at a Coney Island hospital. "You can call him brave if you want. Is brave. But I'm afraid. I am very afraid. But I `m here".

Someday, when this is all over, we will probably raise statues of people in hospital uniforms. We will have parades in his honor. Their names will go on bridges, highways, and memorial walls. Perhaps they will get their own national holiday. Right now, however, our nurses and doctors are busy fighting for our lives. Some of them are dying.

Letha Love

"I am very afraid. But I `m here". This is honest and courageous. Love is 48 years old. She is usually a chief nurse in charge of cancer patients at Emory University in Atlanta. Last week, when a friend told her that some Atlanta healthcare workers were going to New York to fight the virus, she signed up for a six-week rotation.

His armor: covers shoes, a dressing gown, an N95 mask and a mask. Normally she uses several masks in turn, throwing them away after each visit to a patient's room. But supplies are scarce, and he is found reusing the masks. Does this put you at greater risk? Of course. One day you are a nurse, the next you are patient. He has a 4-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son, who stayed with relatives in Georgia. Make a video call with your child two or three times a day. He reminds her to put on the gloves.

• Inside a Brooklyn hospital that is overwhelmed with patients and deaths from covid-19

Also on the flight to New York was Love's friend, Trina Southerland, a registered nurse with three children. When I spoke to her on Tuesday night, she said she felt like a soldier in combat. Sometimes she wanted to give up. Sometimes she wanted to cry. Trina, you can do this, she told herself all day, standing, surrounded by sick and dying people, trying not to touch her face. These were not complaints. They were mere statements of fact, the raw material for the stories he might be telling for decades to come. This work does not always have to be grim. Here and there you find hope, along with a deep sense of accomplishment.

Trina Southerland

"This is the highlight of my nursing career," Southerland told her 16-year-old daughter, who also wants to be a nurse.

It was around 5:45 pm on Tuesday. The bus would be leaving the hotel in an hour and Love was thinking about the night to come.

"Covid-19 is deadly," he said. “What I can say is that there is no age limit. There is no color. There is no size ... There is no state, there is no class, there is nothing. It will attack anyone. ”

"We need support. Because it could be us lying in that bed, cared for by one of our nursing colleagues. "

Fighting for the right words, I finally said what civilians often say to someone going to war: "Thank you for your service." "Pray for all of us," he asked and left once more to meet the enemy.

Coronavirus Doctors Nurses