My mother was born on February 14, and she loved her special connection to Valentine’s Day. From the time they were teenage sweethearts, my daddy bought my mother a heart-shaped box of chocolates every year. I still have a box of valentines that he gave her all those years ago.

I loved celebrating my mother's birthday and Valentine's Day as a double-feature. When I was a little girl, I bought some heart-shaped pans at the dime store. It became a family tradition: Every year, I baked my mother a heart-shaped cake.

Decades later, when she was in her 80s, she had some minor surgery — nothing serious. The day before she was scheduled to go home, she was in good cheer. All the kids and grandkids came to visit, and we gathered in her hospital room to tell funny stories. We laughed and had juice and cookies. Finally, Daddy sent us all home, and we left that evening expecting her to be released from the hospital the next day.

Then, in the middle of the night, my brother called. He said that our mother was dead. Daddy had been sitting with her when she leaned forward and said, "Don, there's that gas pain again." Then she died.

I was almost too shocked to cry. I just couldn't believe it. How could this have happened?

The autopsy showed that she had advanced heart disease — never diagnosed and never treated. Despite her regular trips to the doctor for check-ups and repeated trips for "that gas pain," she had never been checked for heart trouble. No one had any idea.

Later, I would learn that heart disease is the #1 killer of women. It was considered a “man’s disease,” but doctors do a much better job screening and treating women for it now than when my mother had her heart attack.

Even though my mother is gone now, I still have my heart-shaped pans. This week, I baked a heart-shaped cake, and opened up the box filled with old valentines from my daddy. It’s how I remember her.

 
And I’m also doing something more: I’m fighting — with every bone in my body — to make sure everyone can get the health care they need to live long, healthy lives with the people they love. So you know I’m staying in the fight to protect Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, no matter how hard Republican extremists attack them. Health care is a basic human right. And we fight for basic human rights.

I also want to make a pitch for one more program: Medicaid. Millions of Americans with a history of heart disease, stroke, or other cardiovascular diseases rely on Medicaid as their safety net. Look, we don’t know whose baby is going to be born with a hole in her heart and run up $1 million in medical bills in the first few months. We don’t know whose grandma is going to have a massive stroke and need to go into a nursing home. But what we do know is that as Americans, we all pitch in some nickels so that if it happens to your family, the rest of us will all be there. I’m in this fight for Medicaid all the way.

I’m grateful you’re on this team.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you and everyone you love,

Elizabeth