“It’s Election Day, Mom!” Mac wakes me when the alarm rings early. He might as well be waking me with, “Merry Christmas,” his excitement is so earnest. The day – the entire day – is charged with an electricity, an energy … a calm. Election day. The day it will be decided whether we will have another 4 years of the same or if we will finally be able to show the world that the people of America are not stupid!
My boys and I wear our shirts: “A Vote Today ROCKS Tomorrow!” Mac asks me, “What will we do if we don’t win?” I don’t have a good answer for him. I don’t know what we will do.
At school many of Mac’s friends tell me they voted with their moms this morning. Math Genius Boy shows me his mom’s voting receipt. “Look! Here’s my recipe!”
I wait all day, til school is over, to vote. Mac wants to come along. To be part of history. Sailor does, too. I can barely resist walking over to the polling place. But I wait. I want to share this experience with my children.
Dinner is served in the living room so we can begin watching the hours of tv coverage. I am a wreck. We are not going to win. We can’t. Something will happen. It just can’t be… How am I going to sit here for 4 to 5 miore hours?!?!?
Both boys have fallen asleep on the sofa when the news comes quietly on the television screen: Barack Obama has been elected president of the United States of America. I cover my mouth to silence the longest scream of my life. Tears streak down my cheeks. I am in shock. I can’t believe it happened. WE WON!!!! Our country is about to change, to unite, to be freed from the bonds of a man who should never have stolen his way into the leadership seat in the first place. Change! It is here. We won!
Mac is too tired to be awakened. Even when a boy from his French class is on tv. I don’t even try to wake Sailor. There will be champagne tomorrow – “That drink you said, that I have never had,” Sailor said earlier today.
I couldn’t sleep last night, I was so nervous about Election day. I doubt I will sleep well tonight, either, from the excitement!
How will we celebrate tomorrow? I wish we had Victory t-shirts! The tv commentators are flagging – with relief I assume. They have been thru a stressful night, with the rest of us. My father, my children’s GrandDad, recognizes the strength of this night, “I never thought I would see this in my life time.” He will live to see the first Black man in the White House. And it only took me 40 years to understand the magnitude of the power of one person – to understand the importance, the right, the privilege to vote! I voted with pride today.
America – Yes we can!
November 5, 2008
I am so tired! I am in the shower trying to wake up.
Sailor comes in, “Hi, Mommy.”
“Hi, Sailor.”
“What are going do today?”
“We have a playdate with Braden.”
“Where are we going to put it?”
“At the art studio.”
“Ahhh.”
The world is a different place today. “I felt like I was 6 inches taller this morning,” said one man. It is a sunny, warm day. There is not a single newspaper to be had from any newsstand. There is a feeling of hope. A feeling of quiet jubilation. A feeling that maybe everything will turn out alright after all.
Except my kids are fighting and Sailor is crying becuz Mac just hurt him. Must do damage control. Some things never change.
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