December 2022

A few days after the Michelle Obama event was my father’s birthday. We celebrated with me bringing home his favorite steak dinner, flowers (I personally feel men can have flowers, okay?), ballons, and a birthday card. My father is a very straight forward person: Place him in front of a television with a game being played by his favorite Chicago sports team, his favorite steak dinner, the local newspaper and he is happy.

I wanted to be sure I did all I could do for both of my parents before my father’s surgeries, which went well. I would like to say thank you to his healthcare team.  

My father worked at the Smithfield Plant when I was growing up. He was a butcher and he came home with injuries from his job. I learned to cleanse and bandage his wounds. And it wasn’t just him. Many people in my family worked at the Smithfield Plant and I did the same thing with them.

When my father was in the military, he was exposed to chemical warfare and spent four months in a military hospital where he almost died, thousands of miles away from his family. It was hearing things like this that also led to me becoming a nurse so that I would be able to better care for my aging parents.

During Covid, telehealth had completely taken off. I was able to use facetime technology to check in on my parents. I must admit that if this had not occurred, it may have been harder for me to accept the job I have at Whitney Young High School.

In the end, there was nothing to worry about, but I worried anyway. We were still in the middle of a major pandemic. I am an only child, and these were my only parents.