Alex Iafallo doesn't need a holiday to realize how important his mother is to him and so many others in Western New York.
Barb Iafallo has been a nurse at Buffalo General Medical Center for 30 years, and these days she's on the frontlines providing direct treatment to COVID-19 patients.
"She's been doing a great job," Iafallo, the Los Angeles Kings forward from Eden, New York, said this week. "Stressed out but taking care of everybody. She's usually a nurse for post-surgical patients, taking care of them, but now they've totally switched over and she's dealing with coronavirus patients. They have good protocols so she's good there."
The NHL season was paused on March 12, and Iafallo, who drove home from Los Angeles last month, has done his part by bringing food to his mother and her co-workers to have during their sometimes grueling 12-hour overnight shifts.
He's also trying to help around the house with his father Tom, and sister, Julianna, a former hockey player at Ohio State University and for the Buffalo Beauts in the National Women's Hockey League who is doing graduate level studies in physical therapy at D'Youville College in Buffalo.
"She works overnight, 7(p.m.)-7 (a.m.), so we just try to get out of the house and let it be quiet, let her sleep," Iafallo said of his mother's work schedule. "She worked a double Tuesday night and Wednesday night."
There are nerves, for sure, but Iafallo said his mother's commitment to her job is what he admires. It's a commitment that surely has been tested the past few months as her floor has been converted into a COVID-19 unit.
"She just says it stinks seeing people just be so incapable," Iafallo said. "It's just indescribable when you can't really help much. I mean, you can help to an extent, but it is a pandemic. She just feels sad and wants to help everybody."
To help, her children spent the past few days trying to think of ways to celebrate her on Mother's Day. Iafallo said that he and Julianna hadn't come up with the perfect gift yet but were working on it.
"Just has to be something cool," Iafallo said. "She's doing a lot, so we've got to help her out."
