2 hours Ago By By David Madden
When it was May, I wondered what October would bring. Biden was still running then, and daily I felt anxiety mounting as I watched his stiffened gait and halting manner when he spoke. But nothing prepared me for June 27.
I stopped watching the news after that. It was unbearable listening to him insist on going forward to victory and to his supporters inanely telling the world, “I’m ridin’ with Biden.” All, as is said at such times, appeared lost, and then driving home from a wedding in New Hampshire, we got an alert on the iPhone.
If I knew just where we were when I first heard the news on July 21 that Biden was dropping out, I’d go back to that spot on I-95 South and plant a flower or place a stone to mark where the proverbial weight lifted as my anxiety melted away with the thought that our country with all its glorious and gruesome history might still stand a chance, after all, to write another chapter in the experiment begun 236 years ago during September in a sweltering, airless room in Philadelphia. Because in the summer days that followed, there was Kamala with her intelligence, experience, smile, ability, warmth, knowledge, and that boisterous laugh. Her nieces taught us to pronounce her name, and she taught us there was reason for hope.
Now, in October, I cling to that hope, but somehow, the contest between democracy and despotism, between civility and contempt, between truth and mendacity is tight and today too close to call. Now, in October, as the days dwindle down, hope mingles with hesitation, assurance takes its turn with apprehension, one moment brings comfort, the next concern. There are things we know and don’t know: We know Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the 19th Amendment was finally certified, Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers.
What we don’t know is what will be written about what takes place here and now. And so, questions linger, keeping us from sleep. What will the coming days and weeks bring? Who will we be in the months ahead? How will people speak of us years from now? Tonight, only one thing seems certain to me: We never fully sought the truth about our past and so never wholly reconciled all that came before.
Now, in October, we await the coming result to see if we did enough to move forward or not. David Madden Westerly.
