Graduation Day

Breast cancer has played an enhanced role in my life recently.

A few weeks ago, a friend and mentor lost her battle to it.

Thursday, my friend and work partner “graduated” from chemotherapy.

When the nurses of the cancer center rounded the corner, pomp and circumstances playing on the iPhone, with a “graduation certificate” and gifts, it was extra special.

After a year of chemo, radiation, and surgery, she is done.

While there is further treatment with medication and while the future cannot be guaranteed, her chemo is finished and her prognosis is good.

She had some tough times this past year, but the love of her family, friends, and caregivers, and her own inner strength and faith, carried her through. 

Ashley, her primary infusion nurse, was supposed to have Thursday off.

She changed her schedule so that she could be there for the last day.

That kind of care, that blend of skill and compassion, that ability to assess and react to both complex, ever changing medical conditions, and the ability to treat the patient’s emotional needs with empathy, are what makes me proud to be a nurse.

It is also what makes me proud to serve as an officer of AFT Connecticut and VP to my friend and work partner. Our members, in healthcare, education, and public service, practice this blend of skill and compassion every day.

My work partner understands this and leads by it.

Elizabeth Glenn Scott

I met Elizabeth Glenn Scott (Glenn) in 2011 when she came to Backus as an AFT National Rep to help us organize.  

We spent hours in the car driving the roads of eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts visiting nurses.  After each visit, Glenn would gently debrief with me, offering constructive criticism to improve my skills.  She was so good at this and so gentle that I didn’t realize until afterwards how she was coaching me.  

She was with me when a nurse told us why she was joining the union, not because of financial concerns because the hospital had removed the peanut butter from her floor, simply to save a few bucks. Peanut butter that she would give to chemo patients.

Glenn was a friend and mentor.

She was also a breast cancer patient.

Glenn and I didn’t see each other often after that organizing drive but we stayed in touch, with FB, texts, emails and calls, especially when something major happened in our lives.

I told her when I became AFT CT VP and when Jan was diagnosed.

I was with Jan when I got the message of her passing.  Glenn had lost her battle with cancer.

It hit me hard.

When I asked at our Delegate Assembly for her to be remembered, Jan had to finish my sentence. I couldn’t get the words out.

I dedicated my community service this week to her. She had been proud that we had been arrested for social justice.

Yesterday, after a morning of Labor to Labor door knocking, Michelle and I went to an Ed Sheeran concert. 

One of his songs include the following words: 

“Loving can hurt, loving can hurt sometimes

But it's the only thing that I know

When it gets hard, you know it can get hard sometimes

It is the only thing makes us feel alive”

We make ourselves vulnerable when we follow our hearts.

It’s safer not to care too much.

But it’s not better.

Glenn followed her heart.

That’s what made her a good friend, a mentor, and an activist.

Labor Day

Labor Day is a day to live up to the code of the great Labor Leader, Mother Jones, who said famously,
“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
This Labor Day, let’s rededicate ourselves to that cause.

So many people have fought to advance the voice of workers, both in Organized Labor, in politics, in religious life, and from the community.  Many are well know and many others are simply rank and file members, regulars workers.
Remember them all.
Pray for them all.
Whatever gains we have, we owe to them.
Let us never forget the sacrifices they made for us, some even the sacrifice of their own lives on the picket lines.

So remember, and pray, but even more…..honor them.
Honor them by continuing their work.
There is much to do.
While the stock market does well, while incomes at the top of the wage scale soar, workers at the bottom continue to struggle.
An article in my local paper today points to a United Way report that shows more workers living on the edge, paycheck to paycheck.
The reason?
Their salaries for a full weeks work do not pay a living wage.
They struggle all week, yet make too little to put a roof over their head and food in their children’s bellies.
While we give massive tax cuts to the wealthy, the working poor suffer more.

ORGANIZE! My Labor friends say.

I agree, I agree.  Forming or joining a union gives a collective voice for workers, it improves lives.
But I also know the struggles of organizing.
While I have thankfully never had a Pinkerton Man bust my head with a billy club on the line, I know of facing union busting tactics. My colleagues at Backus know the feeling of standing up to a hostile, anti-union management and we know that we could not have been successful without the guidance and support of those who came before us, those already organized.

Our collective responsibility as workers is to remember the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to those who sacrificed for us, we owe it to the workers of today, and we owe it to the children of tomorrow.

We can do it.
There is a wave of worker activism sweeping the nation.  More and more of us are running for and winning political office. More and more of us are organizing into unions everyday. More and more of us are gaining a voice.
It is not easy but it is possible, and it is happening.

So on this Labor Day let us rededicate ourselves to the work ahead.
Solidarity my sisters and brothers!
Happy Labor Day!

Barbara and John

The other day a friend of mine went home to heaven.
Her name was Barbara Robinson and I had the distinct pleasure and privilege to work with her in the Emergency Department at Backus Hospital.  She was there as a nurse when I started as a nursing assistant and she watched, encouraged, and like so many other of my colleges, mentored me on my way to becoming an RN and afterwards.
We shared laughs and cries.
We shared friendship.

We also lost John McCain this week.
I didn’t know him but like you, I knew of him.
He was a war hero, a US Representative, and a Senator.
His politics were not mine, but he did save healthcare for hundreds of thousands of Americans with a dramatic thumbs down vote.
And he stood on principles above politics on more than one occasion, when very few others would.

It’s easy to see how the Senator influenced millions of people.
Maybe not as easy to see how Barbara did.
But between those she mentored and the patients and families she cared for, and her own family who she loved, Barb also influenced millions.

We are better for having both of them in our lives and we will miss them.
My friend Chuck, a Navy Corpsman, wished the Senator “fair seas and calm winds” on FB the other day.
I like that Chuck, I echo that farewell.
And Barb….
Your shift is over, your patients are safe, we’ll take it from here. Rest our sister.

Thank you both for your service.

Let Salma Stay

It has been my pleasure and honor to come to know the Sikander family over the past week or so.
I wish it could have been under better circumstances.

A couple of weeks ago,  one of our Field Reps, Shane, came to us with a concern.
One of our members, Eric Maroney, had a former student who’s mother was about to deported.
I met Eric at a rally outside the ICE office in downtown Hartford the following week.  He introduced me to Samir, his student, an impressive 18 year old young man about to start his first year at Quinnipiac University, fulfilling a dream of his parents, Anwar and Salma.
Anwar is a warm, gentle man who immediately made me feel like a guest. Several times he thanked me for coming and speaking on behalf of AFT, calling me Mr John.
Salma is quiet, polite, and warm.

Anwar and Salma came to this country 18 years ago from Bangladesh. They are seeking asylum.
They have both worked hard, never had any legal trouble and have raised a fine son and contribute to their community , their state, and their country.
They are as much American as any of us, save the paperwork.
Samir was born here.
ICE was going to deport Salma 4 days before her son started college.

The Rally was to attempt to reverse the decision and delay deportation, something well within ICE’s ability to do.
Yesterday, Salma had her last reporting to ICE. She was told she had till Thursday to leave the country. Her appeals and the appeals of the community and many, many politicians, had gone unheard.
Yesterday 9 members of her family and the community began a 48 hour fast outside the federal courthouse where ICE is located.
Last night they slept on the sidewalk in tents.

I stopped by today to do a wellness check at their request. I took vital signs and asked about medications and how they were feeling, advising them to drink plenty of water, which is all they were taking in.
It was both inspiring and depressing.

It’s sad what our country has become.

Samir told me that we had wanted to participate in the fast but that his mother forbid it.
“I have to obey my mother, especially now, on what may be one of her last days here.”

I ask you.
Isn’t this the kind of family we want in America?

Today, just before 5 pm, at about the last possible moment that they could, ICE reversed their decision.
Salma can stay for a year so that her asylum case can be heard.
I don’t know if it was the rallies, the political pressure, the fast, or all this and more…..
But Salma can stay.
She will see her son go to college.
And we are all better for it.

We are all children of immigrants.  All of our families came to this continent seeking a better life for our families. When we forget that, we lose an important part of what makes us Americans.