My daddy couldn’t work for a while after his heart attack. The bills piled up. One day, I walked into my parents’ bedroom. My mother’s face was red and puffy. A black dress was laid out over the bedspread—the dress that only came out for weddings, graduations, and funerals.

"We are not going to lose this house,” she kept saying. She’d never worked outside the home. She was terrified. But she knew what she had to do. She put on that dress, walked down the street to Sears, and got a minimum wage job that saved our home and our family.

I’m thinking about my mother today. I’m thinking about all of the mothers who reach down, dig deep, and do what they need to do to take care of their families. And I’m thinking about all of the ways our government can do more—so much more—to have those mothers’ backs. #MothersDay