From last Friday morning until election day afternoon, I was at Grady Hospital with my sister (never married, no children) who is dying of cancer. (Mama has terminal cancer too, but another sister is in charge of that for now.) Grady is a large, public hosital, so no internet or nice little chair beds for family. Thankfully, the saintly nurses on 11A managed to find a private room for us and by Monday night, I had the floor pallet bed down pat, with a little help from my sons; and it was very interesting to spend the five days prior to the election among (way mostly) black folks. The excitement was palpable. When Sis Bel's medicaid case worker called me at home this day after election day morning, the first thing we talked about was the blessing that occurred last night. To a one, they were surprised to see a matronly white southern woman jumping out of her skin excited about Obama. I'm glad to have voted early, and the nursing staff covered for me Sunday so I could run home and fetch Bel's absentee ballot to post as the Grady post office opened on Monday morning.
Here's where it all gets sad: I managed to get her home about 3:30 yesterday, election day afternoon, and had not quite an hour before the hospice nurse showed up to do the assessment and get the tube feeding equipment set up, which took three hours. At about 8:30 last night, I realized that I'd had nothing but a couple of bites of grits all day, a realization that came, unfortunately, after a couple of glasses of sherry. Like a gift from heaven, Michael (Middle Son, the Loyola grad) showed up with the dinner that his beautiful ex prepared for us, which included still warm cake. I can't remember ever before having been brought still warm cake. I was starving and exhausted. After crying when I voted last Wednesday, after asking hundreds dozens of black folks around the hospital if they'd voted yet (strangers in elevators mostly), after feeling the wind almost knocked out of me every time I thought about the possibilities of what was about to happen, after four years of blogging in hopes of this time coming; I fell asleep before the election was called, before Obama's acceptance speech, which I had to watch online this morning (still cried like a baby). I did manage to stay awake until they called Ohio and it was clear where it was all headed, and woke in the night to reset Bel's feeding tube and administer pain meds to see the Grant Park crowd scattering on MSNBC.
My sad heart fills almost to bursting every time I think of what we've just witnessed. I know that much has been said of the magnitude of an African American being elected president, but I keep thinking that it's something more than that, that the people of the United States of America have retaken our government and announced to the rest of the world that the darkest days are over and we will do better from here on out. As the country and the world erupts in celebration, this is clearly special beyond race, and my primary emotion is how incredible it is that we have elected, not this black man, but this brilliant man, this measured man, this intellectually curious man, to lead us and the absolute certainty that he will do just that.
Update: With attribution to Mike Luckovich in the AJC, I can't say it any better than this:
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