I get so much information about national days from nationaldaycalendar.com and I recently learned that even though National Nurses Day is celebrated on May 6th, nurses can be celebrated all week long. Yay! From 5/6-5/12 we all have the opportunity to celebrate National Nurses Week. In addition, there are many different types of national days dedicated for nurses so we can celebrate them practically all year long. And we should! Surprisingly, honoring nurses on a day or for a week didn’t come about as easy as one would think. Follow the nationaldaycalendar.com timeline below:

In 1953 a US Department of Health employee named Dorothy Southerland tried to get a national day set aside in honor of nurses but President Eisnehower did not sign off on it.

In 1954 regardless, people started celebrating national nurses week even if it wasn’t recognized by the President. Those who celebrated would end the celebration on May 12th because that was Florence Nightingale’s birthday. Nightingale was a highly respected nurse who worked hard to take care of wounded soldiers during the Crimean War and would make house calls whenever possible - even at night.

In 1974 President Nixon officially signed off on celebrating National Nurses Week.

In 1981 some nurses in New Mexico wanted May 6th to be a nationally recognized day for nurses and this request was signed by President Reagan in 1982.

Finally, in 1990, the Board of Directors for the American Nurses Association recognized and officially expanded the day into National Nurses Week.

My mom was a registered nurse from 1965 to 2001 and I often wonder if I could have been a nurse too. When I was growing up people would ask me if I was going to be a nurse like my mom. I never had a chance to answer because my mom always said, “No.” on my behalf. Her goal was for me to be anything but a nurse. Seems odd. After all, nursing opened up so many doors for my mother. This profession brought her from the Philippines to the US with a guaranteed job for two years. You’d think she would want her daughter to follow in her footsteps. When I was a young teenager, I finally asked my mom why she didn’t want me to be a nurse. Her answer was simple: there were too many Filipino nurses in the US. What? I started doing my own research and sure enough, every single hospital that I have ever been in has Filipino nurses. Across the country. I challenge anyone to prove this theory wrong because it would be hard to find a hospital without a Filipino nurse. So? Well, my mom’s specific aspirations was for me to be a TV news anchor. I also think she had mother’s intuition and knew that I couldn’t handle the hard work of being a nurse.

Hard work is an understatement. Nurses have schedules that are grueling with endless and vast responsibilities. Not to mention they are physically compromising their bodies and minds every single day. The amount of hats nurses wear in a given shift is amazing. Nurses are the: 1. babysitter 2. concierge 3. psychiatrist 4. comforter 5. scientist 6. fortune teller 7. family counselor 8. advisor 9. assistant 10. secretary 11. liaison 12. engineer 13. housekeeper 14. story teller 15. rule enforcer 16. bearer of bad news 17. delivery person 18. entertainer 19. project manager 20. pharmacist 21. waitress 22. file clerk 23. interpreter and 24. secret keeper. I’m sure I left off a dozen other jobs that nurses do in a shift. And don’t forget, many nurses have spouses, many are parents and some care for their own parents. It’s no wonder that these care givers need praise and support. Imagine the day and the life of a registered nurse. It’s like a continuous juggling act with no intermission.

When I was very young, my mom worked as a nurse in a VA hospital. However, when we moved to So Cal, which was the second time for my parents, I was in elementary school. I remember that my mom changed her specialty and worked in pediatrics instead. She would come home from a long day at the hospital, make dinner for our family and sometimes when she sat down to eat, she would start crying. Hard. Bawling and hyperventilating. When she could finally breathe, she would inform us that a child died of cancer that day and she would miss them. I remember as a teenager, being bummed that she would bring this up at our family dinner because it was unsettling to see her like that and it was hard for us to rebound into a family discussion after that news. But many years later, when I became a mom myself, I wondered if I could ever do what she did. Maybe she was right to shield me from being a nurse. I might not have had what it takes to be one. One has to have guts, emotional strength and determination in order to keep going back to work each day knowing that there could be loss. We should honor and support a person who has what it takes to be a nurse.

Here’s a tip on how to celebrate National Nurses Day on May 6th and throughout the week. The quickest, easiest and most effective way to celebrate our nurses is to use social media to post our appreciation and use the hashtag(s) #nationalnursesday and/or #nationalnursesweek. Also, our friends over at Pinterest have so many DIY wonderful ways to shower our nurses with praise, thoughtful pinches, words of encouragement and love. Remember to show your thoughtfulness in a way that feels right for you; do not get sucked into over-extending yourself just to be thoughtful. I’m pretty sure what matters most for nurses are recognition and validity. Since it takes a certain person to be a nurse, I can imagine how lonely it can be at times. But by acknowledging these front line care givers, especially during this crazy COVID-19 era, we can show nurses that they have our support.

Although there are certain days of the year dedicated to honoring nurses, we don’t have to wait for specific days to tell them that they are AWESOME. I’m sure during this pandemic, nurses are appreciated even more. Please take the time to show support and care for them. Make sure they know how much we value them. Show the love!

Pinches,

Barb