Any of you who have read me much over the years probably have noticed I bring up my mom a good bit. She’s been a fabulous political role model for me. Even tonight I posted a comment about how one of my earliest political memories is of my mom campaigning for Sissy Farenthold in the 1972 Texas governor’s race.
Mama’s 86. She lives with my sister in the same Georgia neighborhood about six hours north of here that I spent Jr. high and high school in. Every Thursday these days, she spends an hour at a busy Atlanta intersection holding up her Black Lives Matter sign.
Anyway, mom started feeling kind of crummy last Thursday. She had an appointment to go tomorrow to get checked out, but tonight she was in some pretty rough pain, and her doctor, who happens to be my cousin, told my sister to take her to the hospital.
I found out when my sister texted me while I was watching Rachel Maddow. Mama’s in the emergency room, and my sister can’t stay with her. You know why my sister can’t stay with her? Because Donald fucking Trump is president.
If we had a different president, we’d have this virus under control and my sister would be in the emergency room comforting my mom. If Biden becomes president, we’ll get this virus under control and daughters will be able to stay with their mothers in emergency rooms. But right now Trump is president and my mom’s in the hospital all by herself and I just want to scream.
This is one little bitty story in the universe of Covid stories. It’s huge to me, of course, but you know what? Every Covid story is huge and it sure as shit didn’t have to be this way.
God damn Covid and may Trump and McConnell and that hideous new woman on the court and their hoards of enablers get their just desserts.