My Mom Would Have Cried Too

I cry about as much as it rains in Seattle. It's not all about saddness for whenever I am overwhelmed with any emotion it usually results in tears. I cry for our troops, for animals abused, for the suffering of people, and I've even shed a tear for trees. I also cry when I hear the National Anthem, when military planes fly overhead, and when I laugh really hard.

It is no surprise then that on Election Night I cried every time they declared a state for Barak Obama. When that moment finally arrived and Obama was officially elected President, I couldn't stop the tears despite all efforts to try. And for once, Peter didn't tease me. The sheer magnitude of that night was breath-taking, and in my world it called for tears.

The crying comes from my Mom. She didn't wear her heart on her sleeve, she held it out to show all the world. She cried over the National Anthem too, as well as the Preamble to the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address. She cried for the Little Rock Nine, for Martin Luher King, for Malcolm X, and even for Jesse Jackson when he didn't win the nomination to run for President.

When she was a little girl she was friends with a black girl and didn't understand why her mom wouldn't let her in the house. She loved sports so as a teen her best friends tended to be athletes, and some of them happened to be black. She lived in a racist little town in Eastern Washinton and one day she was spotted talking and laughing with a black boy. Her father beat her. Proper white girls didn't associate with Negros she was told, but that didn't stop her. She wanted to march on Washington D.C., but she only made it to Spokane, Washington. Still, it was one of the most memorable experiences of her life.

On Election Night she would have held my hand and cried right along with me. For an African American man with such grace and dignity and hope to be elected President of the United States of America would have filled her heart with joy and her eyes with tears.

So as that moment happened, and I was crying for my country with more pride then I have ever felt, a part of me was crying for my mom because she didn't live to see it. A part of me cried for me because I did live long enough to see it.