The following letter was written to my father, a semi-retired blogger and Daily Kos reader, at approximately 2 a.m. Saturday morning. Earlier Friday night, I had come across a recent Internet phenomenon (the "Yes We Can" song) and at 2 a.m. was still having difficulty sleeping.
So I turned on my computer and wrote the letter that follows below. I hit "send" and promptly fell into a deep and restful sleep (I will not be sleeping tonight).
At first, I didn't want to share it with Daily Kos or post it online -- out of the fear that sharing it would somehow diminish it or its personal nature to my father. Maria Shriver's appearance yesterday in Los Angeles and this diary convinced me otherwise. So here it is:
Dad,
Since I was very young, I've listened to your stories of the 60s. I’ve soaked in the tales of success and gut-wrenching heartache from the politics and violence...and hope...of the 1960s and 1970s.
In my lifetime, I admit, that I have yearned to find a statesman to "fall in love with" -- along the lines of a JFK, RFK or MLK. To paraphrase the line from The American President, "I've been so thirsty for genuine leadership that I'd crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when I discover there is no water, I'd gladly drink the sand." I thought I'd found it with Bill Clinton in 1992. And again with Dean in 2004. But this feels different. This feels...special.
It doesn't feel like politics for the sake of winning (B. Clinton -- 1992) or raw expression of anger and a demand to take my country back (Dean -- 2004). Rather, if feels transcendental. In listening to Obama, I hear the aspirations of our better forbearers. Of those men and women who came before, whether they blazed a bright but short trail across the heavens or quietly built the earthly foundation of the path on which my generation now finds itself, I have yearned to recognize their leadership in my time. In a contemporary embodiment of a Learned Hand...or a Louis D. Brandeis. Not to hold fast to memories that were not mine first-hand, but only garnered from your remembrances and my viewings of recordings of a march to Lincoln and a call for restraint in the face of an unimaginable loss at the hand of an assassin’s works.
I've longed for real memories. Memories that I could claim as my own. Images and sounds, witnessed firsthand and viscerally. Listening to the lyrical words of a person called to serve and having my aspirations and hopes for our people and our nation race along in equal time with the words and expressions I hear for the first time, all the time knowing that the speaker is simply giving flight to the hopes I have kept bottled up inside. Me, too afraid to allow for the possibly of hope...or the rewarding of faith.
In Obama, I hear my own thoughts repeated back to me. With more clarity and organization than I could possibly muster. And I hear the teachings of my father and my father's heroes, but with a twist and a hook that could only come from a mind burdened with the pain and frustration of Nixon, Reagan and Bush. I am sure it is no coincidence that the one reciting my innermost thoughts as part of a stark, clarion call is a person born and nurtured in uniquely American circumstances, recipient of our highest educational opportunities -- an education in our constitutional law so profound, he taught it at one of our most prestigious institutions of higher learning -- and tempered by service (which he chose over the immediate gratification of a corporate lawyer's salary).
With love, comes heartache and disappointment -- and I am sure both will be experienced as not everything is perfect and nothing lasts forever. But I would gladly step into that loving arena than to curse the Bermuda Triangle of triangulation and divisiveness. And I have you and Mom to thank for raising me to believe in a thing called hope (not a place called hope). Thank you so very much for loving this country, believing in our progressive heroes and forbearers and instilling in me the belief and certain knowledge that our civic duty matters and must be honored. I cannot thank you enough.
I love you and Mom so very much.
P.S. This 2 am email was brought into being by me stumbling across a music video of contemporary stars, made as a response/tribute to Barack's New Hampshire Primary (concession?!?) speech. Here is the link: http://www.dipdive.com/... Highly, highly powerful. Here is a story on it: http://www.abcnews.go.com/...