A Surreal Moment - Jim's Story

This story is written by my husband, Jim. He was so supportive of my involvement especially knowing that he had to restrain his own, given his current position. Thank you Jim - I love you.


The news came seconds after 10:00 p.m. CST: Barack Obama, the announcer declared, had won the election and would be the 44th President of the United States. The room I was in when the announcement came was packed with 20-some of Barack Obama’s hardest working and most energetic supporters, people young and old, white and black, male and female, who had spent virtually every waking moment of the last several months working, sweating, living for this very intersection of time, place and destiny. These exhausted, fervent, focused souls erupted with a joy so forceful, so buoyant and so cathartic that every being in the room, and no doubt countless others far away from it, became weightless. A text message arrives on my phone at 10:02. It is from my son Daniel. It reads simply, viscerally, bawdily: “Hell f_ _ _ in yeah, dad! Hell f_ _ _in’ yeah!”

The moment was surreal, unlike any similar moment I had ever been witness to in any election I had ever cared about. I felt faint…flushed, giddy, proud, floating-on-air faint. There was the discernible sense then and there that the national history being written from this instant forward would read nothing at all like the national history already in print. An extraordinary man – thoughtful, intellectual, compassionate, honest, reflective, wise, grounded, humble in his confidence, attentive to the struggles of others…in him every noble human quality that has been utterly absent in the leadership we have been obliged to suffer in this country for the last eight years – has been elected President of the United States. And that this extraordinary man is also African-American makes his ascendancy an outcome of inexpressible significance.

I joined the hugs, the handshakes and the high-fives that in those narcotic moments that followed connected every celebrating human being on the planet. I sat down, head back against the wall, looking above the joyful revelers, past the television and the room and the community and dared to imagine that maybe, just maybe, we will at long last bring the best of ourselves to a pained and fearful world, a world that has been battered, marginalized and demeaned by our hubris, and be the relief of its suffering instead of the cause. The room’s joyful noises receded as I thought about the heavy price that so many have paid in their determined efforts to hold us accountable for our failures to guarantee to all the blessings of liberty we claim to embrace.

Tears welled in my eyes as I beheld these memories rush together in this present moment, unspoken but poignantly present on the faces of the parents and grandparents of a very different time in this country, who stand now bent by the infirmities of age and the weight of a lifetime of second-class citizenship, in tearful, silent tribute to those of their history whose sacrifices made this history possible. Here now stands Barack, this young man of color and unusual name, on the mountaintop we call the presidency of this most powerful nation on the planet. The sight is an improbability so deeply etched into the American cultural conscience that we may be forgiven for asking ourselves, despite the celebratory and electoral evidence to the contrary: Can this be real? It is indeed real. Oh, happy, happy day!

My thanks and love to my spouse, Christine, for her tireless work on Barack’s campaign which efforts she, in her thoughtful way, has dedicated to our children. My thanks as well to the others of her “campaign family” who gave of themselves in similar indefatigable measure to this most worthy and important purpose. Well done! (jmh 11/7/08)