I am completely overwhelmed by the kindness of all of you as I've dealt with the loss of my mother, after one of those "old person spirals downward in the hospital" stories that took a lot out of me and my family. There are so many people who've written beautiful and loving words to me, in so many places on Daily Kos, that I couldn't think of any way to try to write back to you all with my thanks, in the time I have to be online right now, other than to write a short diary. I have only a little more to say below the gnocchi.
One thing is, we are so fortunate that this is not an overtly political story. My mother was 80; she was covered by Medicare, and my father had been able to plan carefully, save well, and buy additional insurance, so the weeks and weeks in and out of hospitals and rehab places, with tests and medications and whatever, have not crippled my family financially. I know many people don't have that good luck -- they have an important story, which this is not. (I might have a remark or two about the utter failure of Western medicine, some 40 years at least after people started complaining about it, to look at the whole person and not one subsystem at a time, but that's sort of more sociological than political, and it's probably better in some places than it was in mom's location.)
And yet, even though this has not much to do with electing more and better Democrats, all sorts of people came out and reached through the series of tubes and gave me a hug. Incredibly, you all put together a quilt for me! You know, time and again I have seen people being comforted here, getting quilts, sometimes getting some financial help; they've been so grateful and I've always thought, Oh, well, of course. That's what we do here! And yet, when you are on the receiving end of it, it does not feel like Of course. It feels like Holy $#&%! The emotional impact it has on the recipient cannot really be appreciated if you haven't experienced it.
So thank you, with all my heart, for holding me up, and if you think you haven't done much with your little note or two, I'm telling you you're incorrect. You have done something enormous and important, something that is about love, which is very, very big and important indeed.
Second: I am likely to write something about my mother, later on, but I'd like to tell one story now, which I've likely told here somewhere before.
In the summer of 1960, I was five. I was seeing all these people on TV, having what appeared to be a big fun party, with balloons and streamers and funny hats and noisemakers. They were singing and chanting, "We want Nixon!" I went in the kitchen, where moms were in 1960, and asked, "Do we want Nixon?"
"No!!!!" my mother said. "We want Kennedy!" So then I said, "What's a Republican?"
I don't know why her words struck me the way they did, but I can still hear her saying them, in that pleasant, kindergarten-teacher tone. "Republicans," she said, "are selfish, greedy people who want to keep all their money for themselves and not give any to poor people."
I think it's possible that, in 1960, that might have been an oversimplification. It certainly does not seem to be any more. Thanks, mom.
Thanks, everyone.