Mom: You've Always Been My Hero

Dear Mom,

I've written a million of these letters to you, for you. I've tried writing this one a million times. Never quite getting the depth I wanted - just a little off the mark, cute and sweet but never that deep-in-my-bones, all of my heart and the fibres of my being depth. Never quite capturing the hero in you.

I knew you were a nurse in kindergarten, with the early morning drop-offs to daycare and me wishing I could stay home with you a little longer. Your blue housecoat was my favourite thing in the world about you because it always smelled like you whether you hadn't come home from your night shift yet or you'd already left for the day. And as much as my sisters and I hated being sick, you were there with the Magic School Bus rental videos and the ginger ale and the pull-out couch with our snuggles.

I certainly knew you were a nurse in elementary school. And of course, I'd moan and complain if we were late to things, if you were late to things - I'm not proud of this age range because it reminds me that I forgot you had a job to do other than being my mom. That I didn't realize or at least didn't bother to consider you were achieving your passions at work and doing your Master's Degree and still taking care of people that weren't just my sisters and I.

And of course, I knew you were a nurse in high school. You were supporting my new passions, my dreams in their infant stages and I was learning more to be able to hold a conversation about some of the hilarious, sad and sometimes scary things that happened in your work. I never told you this, but I envied the Dr. Seuss and Mickey Mouse scrubs because I couldn't wait for the day I could maybe, just maybe, wear a uniform that was so happy and colourful but still a suit of armour. Even after you changed to a job more in line with your passion and they moved to the closet for safekeeping.

Moving into my university career made me appreciate what you do even more. We were running errands on weekends, making the commute - me sharing my learning and you your experience. Discussing lab results and chemical reactions and the types of folks I'd be seeing in health care. By the end of my fourth year we were shouting to each other not angry words or frustrations but gut-splitting stories about the patients who said silly things or shared angst about a system that tended to line pockets instead of healing.

My internship was another level entirely. I was learning how to be a professional in my field, and I had all these new stories to tell about the elderly couple who nearly brought me to tears in the ICU, or the preceptor who definitely made me cry with unkind words, or the incredible teaching I was able to do with patients and their families. You were my information bank for the tough things, all while the tough things still happened to you. Patients dying, colleagues leaving, feeling undermined and patronized on teams you had every right to be on but for some reason couldn't ever get the welcome you deserved.

The same echoed through my first year of practice, now both of us a ever-evolving team of me learning from you and us working together on the same cases. And so it went.

Until the first day my patients were moved to phone call only, and I had to wear a mask to leave my office.

Until the day I stopped by and it came to the very real and terrifying realization that you were still required to care for others in their homes and it was entirely possible that some of them would be positive for COVID-19 and no one would know yet. That in some cases, you were denied or encouraged not to use gloves and gowns and masks to save resources or because it wasn't deemed necessary by management. That by speaking up to advocate for your teammates you would have to deal with so much nonsense.

"Was SARS ever this bad?" You would know best, you worked through that too.

It's a different world compared to your days of scrubs and hospital beds and running codes. To say it's safer would be incorrect.

So while we're waiting out the storm of the pandemic, saving our embraces and loud obnoxious laughter for the day we can all be together again, I'm still thinking about the pull-out couch with the warm snuggles and the Dr. Seuss armour; worn by the woman who taught me that strength isn't money or power or even from the body alone. Strength is fighting to protect others and getting back up every single time we are kicked to the ground. Coming back to fight a little dirtier - with clean hands, of course.

All my eternal and all-encompassing love for you and everything you do,

Emily