Pass the tissues....

I have never been more interested in a Presidential election. I made it a point to be at our local library on the first day of Early Voting. I watched the debates and read all the articles. I rolled my eyes towards the ceiling when McCain called himself a Maverick. I cringed when McCain picked Miss Alaska for his VP. I looked at the intensity in Obama's eyes when he said he would make a difference and I truly believed him. I compared Obama's life history to McCain's and decided that John and Cindy's eight houses and thirteen cars wasn't a reflection of everyone's American dream.

When I voted for Obama, I had tears in my eyes just because of the powerful history behind that moment. I thought of the 1960s, and the killings of the Kennedys and of Martin Luther King Jr. On Election Night, when the numbers were so close, I sat there hoping that McCain and Miss Alaska wouldn't get near the White House. Surely, the voting couldn't go their way. Surely, the country wasn't falling for the "we're different than Georgie W" platform.

And I continued to watch the election numbers coming in.... with the sound off so I couldn't hear the commentators. My thought was that if Obama didn't win, then I didn't want to hear what anyone had to say. When the numbers got further apart, when it looked like Obama had the lead, I turned the sound back on. When CNN declared Obama to be the winner, I grabbed the box of tissues. It was a beautiful moment, and I was hoping that Martin Luther King Jr. was looking down at Obama and smiling because his dream had finally, finally, finally become real.

The phone rang and it was our friends K and B. They had stayed up way past their usual 9:30 bedtime and were jumping for joy in their living room. When they asked me if I had been doing a happy-dance in our TV room, I told them that I had been crying into my tissues and hoping that all of heaven's angels would protect Obama and his beautiful family.

Ten minutes after I spoke to K and B, young Miss C called to ask if I was still watching the election. She immediately noticed that my voice was low and quiet and she asked me if I had been crying. "Well, of course I was," I told her..... "but they're happy tears, not sad ones." This is the first election that C has followed from beginning to end, and she knows that she will be eligible to vote in the next one.

I listened to McCain's speech when it was made clear that Obama had won. His concession speech was the most heart-felt, the most real speech he's made since this entire campaign started. In today's Chronicle, there was an article stating that Palin had wanted to speak to the crowd before McCain came to the podium that night-- she was told she couldn't, that it wasn't proper for a VP candidate to make a speech on Election Night. Miss Alaska wasn't happy. Well, that's how the moose-tracks crumble.... wink, wink.

When CNN announced that Obama would appear in Grant Park, I knew that I wasn't going to sleep until I heard every word he said. We had been in Chicago this past summer and I knew how large Grant Park was....... when I saw the thousands upon thousands of jubilant people in that park, waiting for Obama, I was wishing to be there. It was electric, it was magical.... you could just feel it, right through the television.

I went through more tissues as I listened to Obama speaking to the crowd, and I knew that people all over the world were hearing every word he said. Was everyone thinking the same thing? That finally, finally, we have a leader. We have a president who commands attention simply because he stands with quiet dignity even before he says one word. He can look into everyone's eyes with confidence and a certainty that he will hear what they're saying and put his heart and his mind and his soul into their shoes.

What was that line in "To Kill a Mockingbird" --- Never judge a person, Scout, till you've walked in their shoes. In my opinion, I feel that Obama will bring dignity and wisdom to the Oval Office, something which has been so very lost there in Washington for so very long. He is, in my opinion, one who has always made it a point to stand in the other person's shoes. And that, in my book, is high praise.