"I Wish My Mother Were Alive"

Just now on MSNBC a woman commentator stated that she wished her mother were alive. She went on to say her week has been filled with that thought.

No one could better sum up this week of watching the DNC 2016 for me.

I wish my mother had lived three more years to see all of this.

And it isn't because of Hillary as her individual self-I think it is for seeing my mother as I saw her when she cast her vote for President Obama eight years ago in her late 70's. She toppled in afflicted by her stroke, couldn't hear, telling the poll people what a problem I was for her. Seeing her watch the historic moment, knowing my mother as I know her -and her work in community and human rights. Knowing her sheer feisty soul. SHE thought President Obama was a great President. Period.
Her joy in his winning and her ability to temper cynicism with respect and hope and belief in his ability to do the best he could do-and well for us all was vivid. Hers wasn't a naivety-the years beat that out of my mother. She knew he was the one.

I wanted to be there when my mother saw a woman fully become a candidate for President, viable, strong, fighting all of it for the job, and I would want her to see a woman become President. And I think she'd find Hillary Clinton a good first. Maybe even the right first. Maybe the one-we will see.
I have hope. Mom would shrug those amazing shoulders she said never needed shoulder pads, as if to say, "We will see."

I miss her terribly, Hillary has stated she misses her mother terribly.
It's a hole I cannot seem to yet fill and after three years, the flood came during this week I've cried everyday of the DNC for hours missing her, Mom missing this.

My children can attest to her love of CNN, back in the day, her 24 hour news cycle self, her dear conspiracy theory orientation, her factual-encyclopedic memory-the researcher that never let a fixation go into the night, her love of Dan Rather, her having my little ones put on CNN during 9-11 and every other tragedy for them to "watch together" in some flight from thinking -a woman that knew everything about the oil companies, about foreign powers, about the reach of the United States and their interests. A woman not afraid of taking on dog racing, nuclear power, and assassinations. I don't know what she would have thought of Bernie Sanders. But.....I think she would have the practicality about her choices. Mom was not always within my ability to predict-his stances on Wall Street would have been important. I cannot know. She'd say Trump should be investigated as an agent of Russia-that I can tell you.

I CAN know I heard her tell my children, young, (as they played "the President's game"-mom always loved memorizing facts like this, in order, completely), that she would not live to see a woman President and she only rated it a MAYBE they might see it in their lifetime. And when Obama was elected she stated to me-now hard of hearing and such more brittle-she thought a woman always got shafted harder than anyone else when I broached the subject.

Mom didn't mince words.

Mom would look on Trump with true horror and be stopping her foot about treason. And Mom, recall loved President Reagan-we never came to terms over it, but I took her to his library several times and she bought a piece of the Berlin Wall for my children that sits in a small box there, in her things it still sits I cannot bear to go through in her room. She treasured it. Mom could listen to a conservative, or a Democrat-she wasn't thrilled with most. She loved FDR, and she respected Joe Biden and loved him before any of you knew who he was. She was a Biden supporter from days he lost his wife and when he had an operation on the base of his brain- she covered it to me like a reporter reporting the single story of the year.
She prayed him through it.

His speech at the DNC 2016 would have done it for her. Hillary forever.

God I tell my girls who think I need some meds this day, I never thought it could happen.
A woman running for the White House who is who we actually MUST elect, or we will be destroying our nation-to see it actually come to this. I'll never forget this. I hope there is a part two to this post. And I promise no student, no parent, no child will ever know my view from my post in teaching. No hats or magnets or bumperstickers or comments. None.

Nor will I forget a grown child of a family member I do not know except through social media telling me for supporting HER I need to suck on the end of a loaded pistol-condemning me to a violent death-not unlike another female cousin who TOOK her life in that way-I'll never forget the apparent stakes in this. I'm better dead to this family member than a voter for a woman that surely has served the country and I see has very little to gain doing this and is taking one for the team. That is my personal take. Mine alone. Mine to wish to talk to about with a mother that lived so much social change. Who was one of the brightest women I ever knew-who deserved a life with no glass ceiling on her womanhood.

Yes, I've said all week and say today-I wish my mother was here, today.