On the recordMarch 16, 2022
Let me thank the gentlewoman from Florida for, first of all, all of her leadership in leading the Women's Caucus for a very sizable period of time; and to give us the opportunity to speak about women today; and to remind us that we really started out with a very important woman, and that is, of course, our mothers. So why don't I, as well, acknowledge, Ivalita Jackson, who served her community; but, more importantly, her profession, and she was proud of that, in nursing. And at the time, she was a vocational nurse, and she wore the uniform with pride. She was a mother with pride. She was a wife with pride. She was really our rock, and she did things that showed her sacrifice. She loved her profession. She loved nursing. She was our at-home doctor, probably the doctor for the neighborhood. But in order to ensure that she was home during the day, she made sure she took the night shift. And the night shift in a hospital is a challenging shift. We can see all of the great and wonderful things that nursing has generated, the heroes of today, the sheroes of today, as we went through 2 years of the pandemic. But my mother was a shero many, many decades ago. And I came to love the uniform, came to love those white sparking shoes that she wore so proudly, came to love and honor her sacrifice; and how much she gave to her family, her job, her profession, her church.…
