This is my first diary ever so please excuse any problems of formatting, etc. I recently made a six-hour trip by car . My daughter had given me an audio tape of Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father, an autobiography beautifully read by the author himself. For six hours I listened to this incredible story of a complex individual who is just weeks away from becoming our first non-white president. What intrigued me most was how Obama described the conflict he faced while attempting to find his identity in a situation in which his African father had abandoned him as a young child leaving him to be raised mostly by white grandparents whom Barack adored.
The grandparents were his rock, always there to provide the stability Barack needed to grow up with structure and love. As so often happened it was during adolescence that the search for identity was the most difficult and there was little the loving grandparents could do except to be there for their grandson. Obama was fortunate, however, to live in Hawaii, ethnically diverse and a much more tolerant society than any to be found on the mainland.
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