A letter for my son and daughter …

By Mary Kay Roth 

Joshua and Anna: 

Saturday evening and my phone is exploding during Joe Biden's acceptance speech, as you are both texting with such abundant and abounding joy.  Josh, you have posted a photo of Kamala Harris with the simple, audacious number, "47."  Anna, you have immersed your daughters in a blue bubble bath while chatting with them about becoming vice president someday.

• Everlyn, age 5: "No, I want to be president someday."
• Scout, age 6: "I want to be president someday."
• Anna: "I'd vote for both of you."
• Scout: "What if we ran against each other?"

Meanwhile, fireworks are going off throughout my neighborhood, car horns are blasting and, somewhere down the street, someone is strumming a guitar by firelight.

The tide has turned and the wind has shifted.  A decent, steady civilized man will be the next president of our country, having tallied 74 million votes (and counting), more than any other presidential candidate in USA history.  We will have a vice president who is female and who is black and who is good. We set records for election turnout with citizens who still believe their votes count. We transformed everyday, dedicated election workers into quiet heroes.

So today, I am choosing joy and I am choosing hope.  Our citizens exercised their fundamental right to have their voices heard - and those voices mattered.

However, in all honesty guys, I need to admit I've had some dark moments this week. As election numbers rolled in Tuesday evening, I simply could not believe that almost half our country embraced the most disastrous, dangerous president in our history.  And when Wednesday morning rolled around, I felt like staying in bed and hiding from the world. But what I want to tell you - what I want you to know - is that eventually I pulled off the covers because of inspiration from the two of you.

I knew that your hearts were just as heavy as mine on election night.  But when dawn broke the next morning, you both got up, went to work and carried on.  Josh, you continued shouldering the responsibility of developing a Kansas City high school for 2021, a place that will provide quality education for students of poverty.  Anna, as a nurse dealing with the deadly reality of this pandemic, you headed straight into the eye of the storm.

And you were most certainly not alone.  The young physician who lives next door - who volunteered to serve on the Covid team at one of our local hospitals - worked election night and paused only briefly to check on voting tallies as he also checked on ventilators. At daybreak, the elementary teacher who lives down the block headed for one of our community's poorest schools to teach immigrant and refugee children - children learning in the classroom, and children learning from home.  And my neighbor across the street didn't have time for tears Wednesday, as she was needed at her job with the local food bank - because people were hungry.

I can get lost in the sadness of the last four years, a time that often felt like a jagged edge of ugly despair.  Racial bigotry remained resilient.  Propaganda and misinformation were all-powerful.  Science and common sense were ignored.

And yet, Josh, as you so wisely pointed out, the slog of democracy persisted this week despite the assault upon it.  Both you and your sister seem to have more clarity about our country than I do, understanding yet accepting the fragility of democratic values.  I can get overwhelmed with the depth and breadth of our country's fissures and fault lines, while you have the ability to fly over the contours of the land and focus on what you can control - what you can change.

This week I keep thinking about one of my favorite parables I shared with you in childhood, adapted from Loren Eisley's "The Star Thrower."  I hope you remember it. 

Early one morning, an old man was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see.  Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy pausing, occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer and the man called out, "May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young boy paused, looked up and replied, "Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can't return to the sea by themselves."

The old man replied, "But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach.  I'm afraid you won't really be able to make much of a difference."

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean.  Then he turned, smiled and said, "It made a difference to that one."

Josh, Anna, I remember four years ago when we all woke up to find that Donald Trump had won the presidency - I simply had no words for you, no explanation. This weekend we can scream, shout, celebrate, find promise in the future.  And as I pause and ponder how to move forward - how to move on - I take my lead from my children, two young adults who understand the power of tossing starfish back into the sea.

In the past four years I have learned that I cannot take our democracy for granted.  I have grown humble, falling to my knees when it comes to any sort of star-spangled, arrogant American greatness.  Trump's racist, venomous rallies have directed a spotlight on injustices that have long existed in our country, but were mostly invisible to me - from my foolish position of privilege. 

Nonetheless, in the aftermath of those years of disappointed optimism and shattered trust - darn it, I still love this country. I believe in America.

But I believe America requires hard work and plenty of beachcombing.  This is not a time to sit back, get comfortable and wait for someone else to act.  This is a time for soul searching and vigilance, joining the collective courage of our country, finding the power within us to find a starfish and make a difference.

Kids, I suspect you will long remember the election of 2020.  I hope you remember that I kept the faith.  I kept the faith in our country.  I kept the faith in you.

Inauguration Day is Jan. 20, 2021. Meantime, I suggest that we take it - one starfish at a time.

*****

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