I really miss my mother during election time.

My mother was a passionate member of the League of Women Voters. She worked tirelessly for Fair Housing laws in our lily-white suburb. She took me to hear Daniel Ellsberg.  We marched against the Vietnam War. Tom Lehrer played piano in our living room at a wine-and-cheese fundraiser for McGovern. She helped me survive devastation when McGovern lost, and broke open the champagne the night Nixon resigned.

Smoking one cigarette after another, my mother was glued to the television set through every minute of the Watergate hearings. As butts piled up beside her, she would hurl invective and sometimes even the ashtray at the screen.

I’d cringe to hear “You f**king bastard!” from my normally affable and upstanding mother. Her extensive library of Watergate books took up an entire bookshelf, and she read every single one.

My mother died in 1995, still able to worship Bill Clinton and Dan Rather and Bob Woodward before their legacies were tarnished. Sometimes I look up at the night sky and tell her she’s lucky to have escaped other disasters, too: 9/11, the war in Iraq, Karl Rove, George W. Bush not once but twice and possibly even thrice.

But I wish she were here at such an astonishing moment in history.

She’d be thrilled about Hillary’s eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling! She’d break open with joy to see a black man, who carries Bobby Kennedy’s torch, accept the Democratic nomination before a wildly enthusiastic crowd of eighty-four thousand people. She’d take up smoking again just to hurl ashtrays at the TV during the Republican National Convention.

I’d love to get all fired up with her. I’d love to tell her how my daughters are embarrassed by a mother who doesn’t smoke, or swear too much, but who talks politics 24/7. I’d love to tell her that despite the cringe factor, my daughters, too, have caught the political bug, and that the eldest cast her very first presidential vote for Barack Obama. I’d love to tell her I’m working my heart out thanks to her passion.

So I’ll cast my vote not only for the future of our country, but also for my Mom.

And if the other side wins, I’ll comfort my daughters, look up at the night sky, and tell my mother she’s lucky to have escaped.

By Lorrie Goldin

Labels: Barack Oboma, election time, Lorrie Goldin, missing Mom

Stumble This Post

# posted by Writing Mamas Salon @ 12:01 AM