I am a mother who sat next to her son in a hospital bed for 12 days due to an unknown illness. The doctor told him that full recovery meant taking off from work for at least a year to improve his heart rate. He did not have paid leave; he could have become homeless. I also knew a young mother who died from COVID-19 because she continued to work to put food on the table – her children are now motherless. I fight because no one should have to go through this in the richest nation in the world.
