This will be short. I have cancer, four times in exactly two years, a bit much. But I digress. The cancer stopped me working after thirty years as a goldsmith but has given me many good months. It gave the the opportunity last summer and fall to work almost every day for him here in Ohio at headquarters. Anything they wanted done, I did. For many, many hours each day. Something I wouldn't have been able to do if not. I put in hundreds of hours with Kerry, Brown and Strickland, but found over time, Barack was something very different.
Barack has surpassed my hopes beyond my wildest dreams. Both he an Michelle. I do think that he was destined to be great but in finding Michelle they made the perfect team, a match that is truly amazing.
I want to stay alive just to see what he will do tomorrow. Every day brings something new that delights me, and sometimes, not very often, makes me mad. We can argue everything he does, I do not like his declining to look in to past Bush problems, but I see that he has thought about everything. That is the way with him. He cares, really cares. He thinks everything thing out, nothing is a swift decision, suddenly made. It is hard and he knows it. He will make mistakes and he will admit them, he knows he is not perfect.
But we have changed history, I see that now where I did not before. We have changed the world for the better with everything we did last year, great and small. All of us. We can not change the world, but this one man can begin.
I have the photo of his shaking hands with Chevez on my refrigerator. It says everything. And I have a photo of him and me, I was lucky enough to drive in the motorcade and meet him.
And when he smiles...well, he lights up a room.
That is all. I just needed to say some things. I hope no one minds.