You are absolutely right. I don't live in your district.
Dear sir,
You are absolutely right. I don't live in your district. I did when I was a child, lived on Stonington Peninsula when my parents were still together, lived with my grandmother in Groos when my parents split up and my mom was working a crappy minimum wage job at one of the restaurants (guess how many of those offer insurance, sir. I'll wait while you come up with an answer) on M-35/Lincoln Road in Escanaba. Went to Rapid River Elementary before it became a nursing home, went to Tri Township after the elementary became a nursing home, went to Flat Rock before it became a church.
What I do have, sir, is family ties still in the area and I hear the stories. The people who aren't lucky enough to work for or be retired from Mead, the people who just cross their fingers that the borrowed time that Mead may have left in the area that their job won't be gone. The people who weren't able to replace the good job with benefits when Harnischfeger and Escan left who now are lucky to compete with their teenage kids who work for McDonalds, Shopko and Walmart...maybe Menards now that there's a superstore in the area. Lucky them because at least they offer benefits if not the pay that keeps a person afloat.
That being said, sir, let me tell you my mother's story since she did in fact live in your district.
At Christmas time in 2007, my mother called me telling me that she hadn't been feeling well. Flu like symptoms worse than she ever had. This was about the time that my son had picked up some type of Public School Pestulance that had laid him out for a week himself so I had said to her maybe it was just a rotten flu season and that it would pass. She said possibly but I could tell that something else was wrong that she wasn't saying. I told her that if she really thought she was that sick, then she should go to the doctor.
You know where this going, sir? I bet you do despite your hands clapped over your ears, your hands over your eyes.
A few weeks later I get a call from my brother. My mother had fallen at home in the shower. They thought she had a stroke and she was being transported to St. Francis by ambulance. I told my brother to give me a call once they got to the hospital because I live 250 miles away, my kids were already on the bus off to school and I couldn't just drop everything.
My brother called me again to let me know that they were transporting our mother to the regional hospital at Marquette because it was clear that once she arrived at St. Francis in Escanaba, it was no stroke.
I don't know much of what happened after that because I wasn't there, I was driving up from SE Wisconsin but once I did arrive? The diagnosis of stage four cancer was what I was told. She had tumors on her brain and elsewhere. When I saw her, the left side of her face was slack. She could barely speak. All I could say is it was gonna be all right while I wiped away her tears and brushed the hair away from her face.
My mother was given three weeks to live, she lived five weeks. She was 57 years old. Maybe if she got to the emergency room when she told me about her symptoms over the phone at Christmas, she would have lived six months. But maybe, just maybe if she had insurance, she would have gone to the hospital for regular check ups, she'd be alive today to see her grandchildren, to see her youngest daughter, my sister graduate from college.
So sir, you can tell the tools over at Fox News all about your pro-life stance, how you listen to Focus on the Family...but maybe you should listen to your constituants. Maybe even those of us with ties to your district as well.
Sincerely,
Prima (name available upon request)