I've been thinking about this a lot in the last few days, with all the talk about older women, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
My mother died in February, after being chronically ill for years. She was 82. She was notified in the afternoon that there was nothing left they could do. I frantically flew through a blizzard from California to try to reach her before the end. After she said her good-byes in my dad, brother, niece and nephews, she spent the rest of her conscious time watching the returns coming in from Wisconsin. She was an Obama supporter, and it gave her real comfort to see people coming together in such a positive way as she left the world.
One of the things I dislike the most about the Clintons' style of politics is that it slices us up and drops us into little boxes, which disempowers us as citizens, as well as making us more vulnerable to manipulation. It has gotten worse and worse as Hillary Clinton has gotten more and more desperate. So I wanted to share my mother's story tonight, as Barack Obama clinches the nomination -- if there's any honor in the Democratic Party -- as a reminder that not ALL white women, even elderly white women, support Mrs. Clinton. Not ALL working class voters are racists. Not all people of African-American descent voted for Senator Obama, when it comes to that. We can be more than a collection of frightened little boxes. My mother always believed in that. She was, by the way, a devout Christian, and an Episcopal priest.
I am proud to have voted for Senator Obama in the California primary. I am thrilled that I will get the chance to vote for someone I believe in for the first time in my life in the general election. I really miss my mom. But every time Senator Obama hits another milestone, I think of her and smile.