My little sister Rosie used to call my daughter a grafter, a nice London term for someone who works hard. And that has always been true — even though my daughter had no interest in going to university, she wanted to get her CNA (nursing assistant license) from a very young age. She wanted to go into the nursing profession starting from the bottom. We never argued with her, but we all wondered where that came from. My second cousin is a nurse; but that’s where the trend stopped.
After high school, my daughter worked to do just that. Never one to be a fan of tests, she had to learn some patience and the ability to study, which slowed her progress at some of the curves in the road, but she persisted. I used to test her on flash cards over and over again, until she retained the information. I do recall some angry tears and destroyed flash cards at the time.
I remember so clearly when she graduated with her CNA certificate at the Eden Valley Care Center in Soledad. She was so very proud of herself, and we were, equally, proud of her. She went on to get her State License, and secured jobs at the County Hospital, an acute care center in Gilroy, the County Jail and so on. I don’t remember the order. She wasn’t afraid of the dirty work nor the lousy hours. She was going to be a nurse.
During the pandemic, I was afraid for her, but again, so proud. She sent me a photo of herself at the San Luis Obispo hospital in what can only be described as a space suit, complete with full facial masking and air tube apparatus. That was plenty to make a mother’s heart stop, but she wasn’t fazed. Many quit nursing during that very scary time and sat back on their covid payments in the safety of their own homes, but not her. The patients needed to be attended to and that was her job as a nurse.
If you scan back in your memory to the open gratitude people showed to the medical profession during those harrowing days, the nurses were up there with law enforcement and the firefighters, putting their lives on the line every hour of each shift. I honestly don’t care to remember, because my maternal fear at the time was palpable. Every day I worried that one of those killer bugs would permeate her “PPE” and find their way to infect her. Looking back, she never concocted any covid virus until the pandemic was pretty much over. I think she had the spirit of Florence Nightingale watching over her, as did many others.
And then it was time to march forward towards the next license, the LVN. She had achieved other certifications, including Paramedics and Medical Assistant. (She confessed to me that riding on the ambulance made her car sick, so that wasn’t for her.) But no, she liked to be in the trenches, she wanted to be a nurse. A proper nurse.
Training to get her LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse) license proved to be quite the challenge, as she was involved in a terrible car crash, right after her course started, where she broke two vertebrae in her back. Kindly folk — even the medical professionals — advised her to heal mentally and physically from her terrible ordeal before returning to her studies, but she was steadfast. She was staying on the course, and she was going to get her LVN license, back brace and all.
These were some truly trying times, endeavoring to fit in her ongoing medical care with her studies and her clinicals; but she pushed through, graduating with her class, just as she had planned. At the time, one of her favorite cheerleading phrases for herself was “She believed she could, so she did,” and she defied anyone to tell her otherwise. Her boyfriend — now husband — cheer-leaded her along every step of the way, picking her up when she tripped and always assuring her that she could and she would succeed.
As her parents, it was hard to watch the struggle and the suffering, but we did know she was a grafter and a defiant little miss against the naysayers and the non-cheerleaders around her recovery. I’ll never forget that LVN graduation party either — such a special day, her face beaming as we hadn’t seen her beam in a very long time. She had defied the odds and managed to secure the next license on her journey.
Next, we knew the RN BSN license (Registered Nurse, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, I believe) would be in her viewshed. She had so much experience at this point, it would be foolish to just “settle” for the LVN, when a couple more years at school could secure the big license, she could perhaps be satisfied with for the remainder of her working life. Maybe. Two years of a tough balancing act with school and work and home would then mean she was set up for life. Could she juggle everything to make it happen?
Going to school in Bakersfield for the clinicals, completing constant homework assignments, working part-time in Salinas and living on a ranch in the Salinas Valley meant for a heck of a lot of life-juggling to make these things happen day in and day out. Her beloved husband balanced everything for her life so she wouldn’t lose her mind. We, her parents, helped out where we could with driving and/or hotels to keep her sane. Her whole nursing career has been a family affair for us, and, get this, we are both still afraid of blood — her dad to the point of fainting over it.
But that’s what you do for your children — also grandchildren, since my dad has been there every step of the way helping her to pay for her tuition and stay on track — you push them along to achieve the goals they wish for themselves. If she had wanted to stay an LVN, she would have been the best LVN ever, but it wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to push herself further, aspire to satisfy her own life goals for herself and her family.
So here we are six months into this journey, and she’s passed everything so far. She gets very tired, she wonders sometimes if she can successfully juggle everything on her lap currently, but we do know she’s a grafter, one very determined young lady on her pathway to an even better life and we all believe that she will succeed. I simply cannot wait to attend her graduation ceremony for this license, knowing all the obstacles in her way that she jumped over, crawled around and knocked over to get there.
I’m the proud mother of a nurse. She believed she could, and she is following her belief every day. I cannot wait to give her this gift for National Nursing Week with her well-known quotation right up there with the others. I’m hoping she will keep the blanket in her truck (called Doc) so she can glance at it once in a while on her way to or from school, work, clinicals, all her various journeys, and remind herself of what a grafter she is and how masterfully she’s speeding towards her goal.
Happy Nurses Month to all those grafters out there and their families who support them. It’s quite the journey with some great views on the way.
