wonderful thing called Democracy. The pen is still mightier than the sword and you have proven that, to us, and people around the world. Because of what you are about to do (healthcare) you will save so many the grief I carry every day. If you save even one person from living with what I live with, what so many of us live with, you will have fulfilled your promise, and your destiny as President.
I grew up middle class but 10 dollars less and we would have been lower middle class and barely able to afford anything extra. If you had been President when my mother died, she would be alive today. Because you are about to give America something my mom never had I would like to thank you in her name.
My mother worked every day of her life from the time she was 16 until the day of her death in 1995 at 72. Her story is the story of America. It is the difference in living in a third world country and living in a compassionate country.
For various reasons my father mostly abandoned us, especially financially. This was in the 50's. And so my mother supported two daughters on her own. She saved five dollars every week at the Christmas Club at the bank, so that on Christmas morning we woke up to see a room covered in toys. She had an account at a local clothing store. At the first of the school year we would get 5 days of new clothes and then she would pay each month until the next year rolled around and it was all paid, and she would start again.
She never got one single real Christmas or birthday present in her adult life, until we were old enough to work, after school at 16. She never had a winter coat while we were young. She saved and bought a newer used car about every 6 years. She treasured the crude presents we made her at school.
Her day started at 6 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. She cooked two full meals, washed the dishes in the sink, worked eight hours every day, helped us with homework, read a book to us every night, and then did all the little things like ironing everything we wore, paying bills, cleaning our house and doing laundry. I don't remember her ever sitting down or watching a TV show.
I never once looked into my mothers eyes without seeing love and joy there. She would have done anything for us.
My mother worked as a bookkeeper at her church, and by the time she was 70 they "let her go" because she couldn't see well enough to continue. This was the first time my mother was ever told she was not the hardest, best worker. This was also the first hint, that my sister and I had, that she didn't have enough to live on. She told us she had savings but we had no idea how small it was. A few days later she had a job at a store as a sales person. She also had new glasses.
Then one day my sister called and said that my mom had a stroke and was in the hospital. We sat by her side while she lived for four days in a coma. After she died, we went to her little house to get everything in order. That is when I found her check book and savings book. It was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever seen. She was diabetic. She never bought medicine. She literally chose food over medicine.
We found that she made less at the new job, and so every evening she went to the grocery store to buy whatever she could afford for the next day. Sometimes she spent a dollar, sometimes two or three. Never more. Each week she tithed to the church that "let her go." Each week she put as much as she could in her savings account, and it would grow to maybe $300 or so over time, then the money would be transfered to her checking account and she would pay for the car to be fixed or whatever came up. Then she dutifully started saving again.
She had one account at a local store. At Christmas she would charge a few hundred dollars (by then she had four grandchildren) and by the next Christmas it was paid.
My mother would have died of shame before she would have told us she needed money. We did give her some but she always insisted she was fine. Every day I think about that check book and wonder what she could buy to eat for a dollar or two. It has been 14 years. I still think about her every day.
This is what love is. It's not just a feeling in your heart for someone, it's what you do for them, without resentment or complaint. She looked forward to ironing the dress that I would wear to school each day.
If it had been just a little easier, if she had been able to afford her medicine, if she hadn't been so ashamed to admit she needed help... if you had been President I wouldn't have to live with the pain of this. It hurts more than I can describe to think of how frightened she must have been. She would have been desperate, hoping that she had enough to live on. Medicine would have been a far off dream to her.
I hear the word "liberal" and I am so grateful for them. I am a Democrat and I am so grateful for President Johnson and Medicare. The republicans want to give vouchers for elderly people to buy health insurance. So, in a very short period of time, my mother would have had no insurance as costs would have driven that out of her reach.
She would surely have died earlier. They would invest her Social Security in the market and she would literally have died before she took money from anyone else.
I hear republicans say that they are tired of carrying all the lazy people with their tax dollars. My mother paid taxes every year and now I do. The only welfare I see is the Senators who take a paycheck for doing nothing for the American people.
The dollars my mother paid in taxes, the dollars I pay, should rightfully go to make the lives of all Americans a little easier. They should help the most helpless, the elderly and children. They should pay for someone to police the institutions we trust to keep our savings and investments safe.
My mother would have been baffled by a Pat Robertson saying that the people of Haiti deserved what they got. She had nothing and still she gave what she could. And she loved America. She lived in freedom, and never took it for granted.
These people who would use God's name to tear us apart would have been like aliens to her. It is good that she did not ever hear a Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. It would have terrified her to know that these people were accepted--she would have recognized their lie.
Mr. President, thank you for trying to bring back the America we knew. Thank you for trying to make things just a little bit easier for all of us, but especially for the most vulnerable of us. I wish you had been President while my mom lived. We would surely have had more time with her, and we would surely have had less pain to live with even now.
I know it is alien to you to work with people who care for no one but themselves. But remember when you walk into those healthcare talks, you have all of us with you. The easier you can make American's lives with the tax dollars they sent the more beloved you will be. We have been too long in an America that most of us cannot fathom.