I watched television coverage of election night in my mother's nursing home room. I don't know for sure that she heard me when I leaned over her bed and told her, "We have a new President," but knowing Ma, she probably did.
I had voted for Barack Obama, and I never asked Ma for whom she had voted. But I asked if I could watch election coverage with her. She had stayed up until 8:30, and when she had begun to fall asleep sitting up, she agreed to lie down. She went to sleep within moments.
When the electoral vote number quickly rose and the crowds in Grant Park cheered, I felt pleased, moved, and hopeful--for the first time in a decade--having despaired these eight years at the destruction and pain Bush, Cheney, and their associates wrought. I stayed to watch the concession by McCain, and felt renewed respect, and I listened to Obama, whose speech was what I've come to expect--intelligent, compassionate, resolute. Through it all Mother slept.
Afterward, I turned off the lamp on the table and pulled up her covers a little. I had told Mom earlier, as I picked out her sweater and pants for the next day, that I had not felt this hopeful in a long, long time. I'm not sure she understood, but she may have. She had not been at her best since after supper--some things she wanted to express she could not, as if an idea occurred to and as quickly eluded her. It is sometimes like this, but I spend all the important occasions with her anyway. And tonight had been such an occasion.
At the nurses' desk the night nurse was rifling through the drawers of a medicine cart. The evening nurse was getting ready to go off duty but came around to ask me if I was glad. "Yes," I said. "So am I," she said. "And I'm relieved," I said, "that the outcome was clear." The last two elections had been marred by disparity and doubt and had been all the more difficult for that. "Just you wait," the other one, the night nurse said, slamming a drawer. "I happen to know that he [Obama] is close friends with people who are...." and she neither looked up nor finished, she was that irate. "In 2 years this country will be Communist."
I wanted to say that any changes this President would make would likely benefit her, and that she should be glad for that. And glad that the Bush and Cheneys, and the McCains of the world--the rich elite who know little of and care even less about the people like her and me have finally, after these long years, been dislodged from part of the stranglehold of power they have in the world. But I had been deep in my revelry and unprepared for a sudden realization that many, many people think as she does. I had thought that at least my feeling of joy would last until morning. I had thought I would wake up the next morning to find the same troubled world. Instead, I walked down the hall and there it was already.
I hated to leave Mom there. But leave her there I must, every day, every night. I have little to no control over that or over reshaping the way people there, or anywhere, behave and think. "Oh, let them do what they want..." the night nurse muttered to herself as I was leaving.
Who did she mean? I still wonder. Communists, as she'd said? Or, had she meant terrorists? Or was it actually African-Americans she meant, but could not bring herself to say it for fear of reproach? Or, maybe she meant Democrats, liberals, and progressive thinkers? Or, was it just anyone who is different?
Have politicians in league with the wealthiest businessmen, and corporations, in this country--the Bush and Cheneys, and McCains--so swayed people to identify with them based on certain conservative talking points that the working class poor lie down before the exploits of these rich and powerful men? And even as these wealthy men wreak destruction here and abroad, the exploited go on believing in them?
The crowds in Grant Park had cheered, and glowed, and cried, and it had been a brilliant night--a clear, shining moment--a moment of grace. But only a moment, and one I'll remember and hold dear. And, I will hope for more moments like it.
