HOUSTON, Texas — You know the old refrain: When the United States catches a cold Mexico gets pneumonia. Now it seems, with the H1N1 flu outbreak, Mexico has pneumonia and the U.S. (so far) only has a cold.

In my family, the threat of a flu epidemic is alarming news. Prevention measures are observed seriously. You see, my grandfather died during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic when my mother was one year old.

The confluence a potential flu pandemic and Mother’s Day brings my mom, who passed away four years ago, to mind. Throughout her life she had felt incomplete from never having known her father. 

I am one of her four sons. As soon as we were old enough to help out around the house, we took turns washing dishes. We were taught nothing less than scalding hot water was the right temperature for the task, requiring us to use rubber gloves. My mom would come up behind us sometimes as the dishes dried on the rack over the sink to pour boiling water over them for good measure. She later retired as a technician from St. Joseph’s Hospital. She was temperamentally suited for overseeing the sterilization of surgical instruments.

An avid newspaper reader from childhood, she recounted to me how she waited for the afternoon train that brought the big-city San Antonio newspaper to Victoria, Texas, so her grandfather could read to her the events of the day taking place around the world.

A glimpse into those times and the pandemic as it occurred in Texas became the movie,1918. Written by Academy-Award winner Horton Foot, the story unfolds in the nearby town of Wharton.

In today’s world news, it seems appropriate that President Barack Obama would lead off his press conference on April 29 with an update on the flu virus, It included his request from Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funding and offered steps everyone should take to prevent the illness: wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, stay home from work or school if you’re sick.

The President was put in that role because Kathleen Sibelius, his Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee, was confirmed only the day before and the country lacks a Surgeon General. These are the individuals who would usually carry the weight of giving practical advice.

For my mother, government was not about ideology. It was about social values — fairness, justice and representation. That’s how people help each other in the face of adversity. She cried when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. She prayed her rosary fervently in front of the TV set in 1960 when John Kennedy still needed a few votes to carry Texas. I have no doubt it was through her intercession that those votes from Duval County came through for JFK.

One of the earliest memories I have is how she stood up to some men who harassed us at the Pig Stand drive-in, which later became a landmark in one of Larry McMurtry’s books. She said they were the Koo-Koo Klan.

In her last years she developed a type of Alzheimers. One day she asked me who was president. I told her it was George Bush. “Is he any good to poor people,” she wanted to know. Not even Alzheimers can erase legacy knowledge like that.

   Her memory is a reminder to me that simple common sense practices like washing dishes with real hot water or coughing into your sleeve — when we all do it together — can tame something as dangerous as a pandemic.

[José de la Isla’s latest book, Day Night Life Death Hope, is distributed by The Ford Foundation. He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service and is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (2003). E-mail him at [email protected].]

   © 2009