This is my first diary. I've been reading this site for a few years now, but it wasn't until now that I felt the need to register and write a diary.
This isn't a donation drive, I'm not asking for anyone to dig in a little deeper. If, however, you were already planning on donating some money to Obama or if you've never donated before and you were waiting for a time/situation or something like that to come up, I thought I might put this out there.
My mother's husband, a great man named Jack Sederstrom, passed away due to natural causes two weeks ago (I had to wait the week after registering to post the diary). He was a good man, who served in the US Coast Guard during Vietnam as a Lieutenant JG. He spent most of his later years (there weren't many, he was only 63) hiking the trails and canyons of Arizona with my mom and his dog Sheena. He wasn't a public figure, he didn't have any grand aspirations. When he died it was a fast, merciless illness, but it was relatively painless and swift.
The one thing he was more passionate about than anything else was seeing Obama get elected. As a passionate Democrat living in Arizona, he was already keenly aware of what a snake John McCain was. Jack opposed the war from the beginning, arguing passionately at the table with those who supported it - he was able to combine passionate progressive values with a common sense rhetoric and worldview. He was a white, senior citizen, working class military veteran, just the opposite kind of person the punditry would assume doesn't support someone like Obama. Nor was he active online, he didn't read any blogs. He saw what Obama offered and embraced the hope of change.
Unfortunately he didn't live long enough to really know that Obama captured the nomination. But he still can have an influence on his campaign. His obituary asks that donations could be made to the Democratic Party or the Arizona Wildlife Federation (another great organization). He wasn't hip to the blogs, he had never heard of ActBlue or even DailyKos. If he had I'm sure he would have been ecstatic about donating to them.
So here's what I'm asking. If you're planning on donating some money to Obama's general election campaign, or to the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, or directly to individual campaigns through ActBlue or something, it would be a great testament to his memory if you were to do it in Jack's name. He would have been thrilled to see these great online fundraising opportunities available (I was going to press him and my mom to donate online for the first time during my next visit).
And if you don't wish to donate anything in Jack's name, at least know that he was a man before his time - a member of the Baby Boomer generation who, like so many boomers here on DKos and elsewhere, got it. He saw through the bullshit and knew what it would take to change the country for the better. Sometimes for me it's really easy to think that only those of us who read the blogs and are hip to the latest developments are truly seeing the forest for the trees. But I'm wrong when I think that - there are people like Jack out there, seething with passion and urgency, part of the new Silent Majority, waiting for the chance to take the country back. We're not alone.
And that makes me feel good.
Here is a photo of my Mom and Jack, two Obama supporters who loved each other and their country, and not even close to the kinds of people the pundits would peg as Obama supporters:
I can only hope that throughout my life I'll be able to see through the mist of the world as clearly as Jack did. And so for that I'll be throwing my first donation of this campaign to Barack Obama, in Jack Sederstrom's name. I invite all of you to join me.