The images of summer are all around me looking like the glossy side of a postcard sent by a friend with “Wish you were here” scrawled on the back.

I have been bowled over by shapes and colors in everyday scenes like:

• The red-orange sunset behind highway construction (making you almost forget to be annoyed by the delay).
• Little kids taking a cooling dip at a public pool. Dayglo, quickly drying, bathing suits doing battle with Disney-themed blow-up rings and rafts for most attention-grabbing.

Or

• “Fifty Shades of Green” shrubbery greeting you at every turn of a neighborhood walk. Who would have thought your zip code could be described as lush?

This summer, like Dorothy stepping out of her family’s cabin after landing over the rainbow, after months of staying in and overdosing on Netflix and Zoom, just being OUTSIDE feels incredible.

But while I can’t imagine tiring of the ordinary sights of summer, I’m very conscious of Unseen Summer.

What do I mean?  Is something unseen because It’s not visible or simply because it’s not noticed?

During this past year, a term has crept into everybody’s lexicon, “essential worker.” While most people were encouraged to stay at home to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 virus, people in certain professions followed different guidelines because their services were considered too important not to be provided.

Doctors and nurses, allied health care specialists, of course, were tireless in efforts to minimize loss of life and provide comfort.

Policemen and firefighters, teachers and law-makers might be understood as being indispensable at a time of crisis. But more people started to think about bus drivers  shelf stockers in stores, and anyone involved in the processing, packaging or preparation of food as “essential.”

More of us started to consider being grateful for the work performed by people that were often unnoticed previously.

People who stayed in owed their comfort to armies of delivery people and Amazon warehouse pickers. To a large extent, we owe much of this season of  “coming out” to the risks people took on to make sure that most of our material needs of this last year could be met.

But now, I have to think about the ongoing work of scientists to understand the virus.

And the work continues through this summer.

Right now, as most of us are celebrating being able to eat out, or go to a ballgame or a concert, scientists are trying to validate the effectiveness of this vaccine with variants.

We all want to enjoy the special sights of the next season and the next; watching a fall sporting event in a packed stadium or gathering around a holiday table with extended family next December.

Community organizations are working on making it easier for some populations to get vaccinated. Manufacturers and international health organizations are exploring ways to make production and distribution cheaper.

If the safety of any person, community or country depends on the health of everyone on earth, there can be no summer break for people who can further this mission.

Scientists, inventors, business and civic leaders, journalists, communicators of every stripe are needed to champion the cause of this summer. It’s time to show each individual how he can benefit when everyone in the world is safe.

Mitigating harm from unseen threats is no small thing.