Varsha’s Reviews > Becoming > Status Update

“What would come from if? I didn’t know, the same way I didn’t know what lay ahead for us in the White House, nor what lay ahead for the country or for any of those sweet children surrounding me. All we could do then was put our faith into the effort, trusting that with sun and rain and time, something half-decent would push up through the dirt.”

"I'd seen enough of the divisions to temper my own hopes. Barack was a black man in America, after all. I didn't really think he could win."

"It was almost midnight...And everyone had been waiting. We'd been waiting a long, long time."

The juxtaposition of these two lines, before and after the election, reminds me just how big a deal it was when we elected Barack Obama.

And it shows me who America is at our best.

"It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does. It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open the fridge. It hurts to put on a pair of socks, to brush your teeth. Food tastes like nothing. Colors go flat. Music hurts, and so do memories. You look at something you'd otherwise find beautiful - a purple sky at sunset or a playground full of kids - and it only somehow deepens the loss. Grief is so lonely this way."