Now that little eyes aren’t here reading over my shoulder, I want to share a Granddaughter #3 story that will join an essay I wrote about a similar special moment with #2 when she was around the same age.
This story started with #3 seeing Kamala Harris on television. She smiled immediately but the smile disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. With a somewhat troubled expression, she asked why I stuck Amy over the top of Kamala on my bumper. I explained that during that primary race--which, since she's seven years old, required an entire lesson about political parties, primaries, and generals--Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar were tied in first place for me. I was excited about the prospect of having either of them as the next president. There was one big thing that I liked better about each of them so I was having a hard time deciding who I was going to vote for in that election. I sent donations to both while I decided.
Of course she asked, and I explained what it was for each. I told her why I had decided to go with Kamala - a story and a confession this time. I had left my daughters at home while I went to pick up a mixed-race teen from basketball practice. My experience had always been that the car was the best time to get kids to open up and I suspected he had been carrying some heavy thoughts for days. The alone-in-the-car trick worked. He opened up and went deeper than I anticipated. He said he was having a hard time figuring out who he was supposed to be. He already had a white mother and felt like I was a second white mother which seemed like a betrayal to his mother and to make it even worse, he felt white but he looked black like his father. And then he hit me with what sounded like regret that he looked black because no black man had ever been president so he didn't believe he could be anything he wanted to be.
This was not a cross country drive and I am a big talker so I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make even a tiny dent in the conversation before we reached the house. My inept response was that he was beautiful and perfect just the way he was, and he sure as hell could be anything he wanted to be. And I found some awkward words about being grateful that his mother shared so much of him with me because if I had a son of my own I would want my son to be just like him.
By the time we got to the house, I realized that my daughter might have had some of these same concerns. I'm white and her father is brown and we've never had a Hispanic president, either. I hated myself a little for never thinking of her as anything but my beautiful daughter, even years before when I had asked why her friend down the street always came to our house and never invited her to their house, and I got the disappointing response - a shrug and, "I don't know. Her mom said her dad doesn't like chicks so I can't come to their house." I was certain the word wasn't chicks so I was glad her little friend was on our front porch waiting when we got home every night and stayed until bedtime.
But I didn't consider that my daughter had known what that meant. Or wondered if she heard things like that at school. What if she had feelings similar to the ones this young man was expressing to me. What if she thought there were things she couldn't do because she was brown? We all had a serious talk over dinner that night.
So, the Kamala bumper sticker went on the car because my daughter and granddaughters needed to see a brown woman be president. Of course, I shortened that story quite a bit and made it seven-year-old appropriate. And explained that when Kamala dropped out of the race and I felt certain she had a chance at VP slot, I left her bumper sticker on my car and put Amy’s over the corner of it - still wanting to show my support for both.
#3 liked my reason
for choosing Kamala first, keeping her on, and supporting both. We talked a bit
about how we liked saying her name. I picked up on that when she repeated it several times for no reason. I told her about Mamala. She loved that.
And I told her, once again, how much she (#3) has in common with little #2, who is 14 years older than #3. #2 walked around saying BarackObamaBarackObamaBarackObama the way other kids sing Baby Shark. She also wrote it up and down the sidewalk and in front of my neighbors’ doors. We didn’t need yard signs.
#3 reminded me that she loves Barack Obama, too. I said of course you do, everyone does. (I didn't remind her that when she was a baby, she called me Obama instead of Gramma for about a year and we never figured out if she did that because she couldn't pronounce Gramma of if it was because she knew how much I loved him.) She asked why. I asked why do I love him or why does everyone love him?
I explained both. I adore him because he’s the closest anyone had ever come to being just like my dad to me, and what makes that special is that just being their presence makes people feel better. They both exude (exuded, in Daddy’s case) palpable goodness. And I saw huge tears in her eyes. I expected her to say. “Your dad is dead,” but apparently she has outgrown reminding me and her mother that our dads are dead.
When I asked about the tears, she said she was embarrassed
to tell me and I said it might make me cry if I have to know she doesn’t feel comfortable telling me something. So, she told me - hearing me
talk about Barack Obama makes her love him "that" much. She just “feels” it. The love comes off of me onto her.
Wow! I told her that proves what I was saying about him. The profound positive energy that I felt the first time I was in a room with him will live in me forever, and I am able to share that with her, and with other people. She blinked more tears off and nodded. Like she really got it.
She thought for a few seconds before she asked, “Can you really do that? Share the energy? And he can, too?” I assured her that she does the same. She’s the kindest person I know and she spreads that good energy everywhere she goes. It’s her superpower that she didn’t even know she had.
“And love?” she asked. “We can spread love into the world?” Yep. I promised we can. And we can receive it if we spend our time with the right people.
And that is exactly what Kamala Harris is doing right now. She is spreading positive energy. We're laughing and dancing and exhaling. Oh, how we are exhaling. Years of stored up good energy that we were afraid wouldn't have anywhere to land. Now, everyone is ready to inhale that good energy and blow it back out into the world.
I made a special point to tell her that because I am old and don’t work or go to school, I have the luxury of seeing only people I want to see now. And because I am especially susceptible to the energy around me, I carefully choose to only spend my time with people who have good hearts and want the best for everyone. She doesn’t have that luxury yet so she needs to work on putting out her positive energy and not taking in energy from people who want to hurt others. The sweet girl held her hand in front of her face and showed me that she can breathe back in her own positive energy if she's around bad people.
We spent some time inhaling deeply and exhaling loving energy that we both admitted we were receiving from the other without any effort. It was like Qigong on the couch.
The kids need Kamala Harris to be our next President (that's not a trumpish error - I believe she will absolutely win that capital P. And the world will be a better place because of her.
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