For Delia

The fight for family leave insurance has a face. It also has a heart and a soul. It is personified in Robert Serrano—a marine, a hard-working grocery clerk, a proud UFCW Local 152 member, a loving husband to his beloved Delia for a dozen years, and a widower at 39 years old. It is also embodied in his wife, Delia, who Robert always called “D”. A warm and family-focused woman, who raised her nephew as her own son, who thought the best times were cuddling and watching a movie, and who cooked with love and special skill.

For Robert, meeting Delia was ‘love at first sight.’ As for Delia, not so much. He recalled seeing her shortly after he got out of the service. She was behind the pharmacy counter where she worked and Robert told his friend, “See that girl there? That’s the one I’m going to marry.” He laughed when he told me that Delia thought he was arrogant and ‘one of those marines with a chip on his shoulder.’ Apparently, he changed her mind.

When Delia was dying of leukemia, Robert didn’t get nearly enough time to spend with her. It pains him to even think about it. In his words, “I couldn’t be there with her around the clock, like I wanted to, especially when she was still at home. I wanted to be there comforting her while she was in pain. And just hold her. But I missed that because I was at work.”, Robert said. “D had two bone marrow transplants but neither worked. Her liver and kidneys ultimately failed. I was fortunate and blessed to be able to spend the day before she fell into a coma with her before she ultimately passed.”

For a long time before that sad day, Robert spent his days traveling between the Philadelphia hospital where Delia was being treated and the ShopRite in Vineland where he works, to spend a couple of hours with her at a time. Before Delia was diagnosed with cancer, the couple were both working. But when Delia couldn’t work any more, their regular bills, as well as the added medical and travel bills, piled up. Donations and fundraisers helped but Robert was struggling just to keep up and he had exhausted all of his sick and vacation time. Like most people who need time to care for a family member, Robert couldn’t afford to take unpaid leave.

The family leave insurance bill (S-786), which will be before the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee next week, will allow all workers up to six weeks of family leave insurance, at up to $524 a week to care for a sick family member or nurture a newborn or adopted child. It is completely worker-funded and will cost workers about a dollar per week. Despite the reality that it won’t cost businesses a penny, the business lobby continues to oppose the bill with fervor portending a crisis if the bill passes. That’s nonsense. There has been no crisis in California, where near identical legislation has been in effect for years, and it won’t happen here.

Robert is passionate when he talks about the need for family leave insurance. When I asked what he’d tell legislators who will be voting on the measure soon, Robert said, “I always say that cancer has no respect of a person. It attacks anybody, any culture or income. Legislators need to think of how they’d feel if they were on the other side of the fence, when they need time to be with a loved one. It’s one thing if you’re wealthy and if you can afford to take off. If you are a working class person or a middle class person, you can’t. This bill is here to give us some help.”

Working families across New Jersey agree with Robert. And our collective hearts go out to him. It’s time to make New Jersey a much better place to care for our families and pass family leave insurance.