Now More Than Ever, My Mom Is My Hero

Julia Gomez/Staff Writer

My mom is a nurse. Right now, that feels like one of the most mortifying sentences to say aloud.

I’m lucky my mom doesn’t work with patients anymore. She’s the manager of a team of nurses now and works out of an office. She isn’t running around hospital floors in scrubs, wearing a face shield and goggles. Instead, she wears sneakers, jeans and a basic face mask as she interacts with frontline support staff and the other managers at her office. 

Still, she comes home every day tired and stressed with a mountain of paperwork. She’s full of anxiety, wondering if her team members are going to have enough supplies to protect themselves and safely care for their patients—and that’s if said supplies even arrive. Work has also been emotionally taxing, as the nurses, doctors and nursing assistants aren’t allowed to interact with each other the way they used to anymore, in order to limit any possibility of exposure.

Before she was a nurse manager, my mom would visit the homes of patients to provide palliative care and alleviate the symptoms of dying. She’d make death less painful and less scary while also being a shoulder to cry on for the families losing their loved ones.

My mom also studied nursing and graduated from Miami Dade while my brother and I were still in high school. She cared for us while taking care of my grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s and could no longer remember who we were. She’s always been the person to encourage me the most when it comes to my writing, and I genuinely don’t know what I would do without her. 

Needless to say, my mom is a badass. 

Right now, healthcare workers are the most at risk of getting COVID-19. These men and women have dedicated their lives to curing the sick.

“We know the high mortality in older people, but for reasons that we don’t understand, front-line health care workers are at great risk for serious illness despite their younger age,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, on CNN’s “New Day.” 

The novel coronavirus isn’t only taking a physical toll on health care professionals like my mom, but a mental one too. The trauma healthcare workers witness are causing them to suffer severe anxiety and depression. The fear of taking the virus home and infecting loved ones or dying from the virus when they are the main provider for their family adds an extra layer of stress to an already overwhelming job.

I am so proud of my mom. She was meant to be a nurse. She’s caring and compassionate and improves the lives of everyone she meets. She’s kind, but she understands that death and sickness are a part of life. That’s what makes her such a great nurse.

It frustrates me to see protestors out on the street saying it’s okay to risk a few lives for the sake of our economy. People who claim this virus is fake make me furious. They don’t understand, or don’t care, that they’re risking the lives of people like my mom—people who want to alleviate the suffering of others.

My mom is my hero. The nurses out there working to help save lives are moms, dads, sons and daughters. Each one of them is someone’s hero. Please keep that in mind before leaving your house for something that isn’t essential.

Featured image by Jernej Furman on Flickr.

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