This man thanking health care workers through a window is all of us ❤️

There are really no words to express the debt of gratitude each and every one of us owes to the men and women on the front lines against coronavirus. The doctors and nurses treating patients around the clock at packed hospitals are putting their own health on the line—especially as dire shortages of personal protective equipment like mask, gowns and gloves persist—but they’re doing so for one reason: to keep the rest of us safe.

One man experienced that heroism firsthand when his wife came down with the virus, and expressed his thanks in an emotional (yet socially-distant) fashion. He held up a touching sign outside New Jersey’s Morristown Medical Center reading, “Thank you all in emergency for saving my wife’s life. I love you all.”

Nurse Allison Swendsen snapped a picture of the moving message and shared it on her Facebook page writing, “In triage the other day, I heard a knock on the window… This was what I saw—this man knew he couldn’t come in but wanted to show some gratitude—I asked through the window if I could snap a picture and he nodded, he had tears pouring down his face—I peeked out the door and asked him how his wife was—he said “Great, she is going home today, you are all amazing.”

With his hand on his heart and his face crumpled with emotion, you can see just how grateful he is—and it wasn’t lost on Swendsen. Her post continued, “I don’t know him, I don’t know his wife, but throughout the last 13 years as a nurse, I realized, this is why we do it—times are tough but we make a difference.”

While we’ll never truly be able to repay what we owe to our medical professionals, this powerful post proves that simply saying thank you is a great start.