How did I form them? I watched the news and read the newspaper and knew that I couldn't stand for or believe in a lot of the conservative tripe that gets reported here. Even at 3 and 4, yes; it's true. So that's part of it, but as I've gotten older, I've formed another theory. See, growing up, my mother was always telling me I made the same facial expressions as my Uncle Ronnie. She was always saying how I reminded her of him. I'd never met the man. In fact, until 1998 or so, I never once really spoke to to him. He'd gone to New York City when he was younger and he just didn't have much contact with the family.
Not that I blame the man. I'd always heard he was gay and all kinds of other things about him that would pretty much assign him to the role of persona non grata amongst our very conservative family and in this very conservative area of the country. I met him once when I was 9 or so, but we didn't talk and I only saw him from the side, because I was shy and could only peep around the corner and say hi and then run away.
Years later, when I was an adult, he moved in with us briefly and I got to know him a bit. The truth is we clashed MADLY. We were too much alike in some ways and very different in others, but truly, we just rubbed each other the wrong way. We're both the only liberals down our family line (My mom's come around in the last few years but she was quite religiously conservative when I was growing up), we're both the only non-heterosexuals down the family line, we're both people you wouldn't look at and say "oh he/she loves college basketball" and yet we're both hugely into it. Yet, we still clashed.
When I was a teenager, the man hand drew me maps of Cincinnati and wrote out walking tours so that I could get to know the city on my own terms. He didn't know how obsessed I was with urban life or with Cincinnati as a concept--with the river and the bridges and life that goes on there. I guess he might have guessed it but he didn't really know. And he shaped my formative years without really being here for them. Because of that, even when we scraped along as adults, I tried to maintain respect for him and for what he does with the beliefs we both share.
And, really, I feel like I'm his progeny in a way, as if the best parts of me might have come from him directly in my DNA. Liberalism and a love for cities and rivers and bridges and skylines....and all the things that I hold most dear are things I share with him. I feel as though maybe I got it from him in my blood, in my bones--even though we clash from time to time.
He and I are the weird ones of our family and, watching my nephews, I think I passed the weird on to one of them. Don't get me wrong, they're both brilliant and amazing; it's just that I think Braden, the older one, might have gotten the weird--straight down the line from Uncle Ronnie to me to him. A few nights ago, my mother was babysitting the boys and I called the house to check on them all. My mom said, "Braden, tell Aunt Becky what you told me about the elections."
Braden launched into a story about how his school had elections and he had voted for Obama and how Obama had narrowly won. And then my mom prompted him again, "Tell her what else you said when I told you Aunt Becky was going to vote for Obama." And he said, "Oh, I said that I wasn't surprised because Aunt Becky and I have a sort of connection. We both lover Harry Potter and we both love Maple Story." He named a few other things and then I asked him why he voted for Obama. (His father and mother are devoted republicans and McCain supporters.)
This wonderful boy, Braden, who will be 8 a short four days from today, said, "Because I believe him when he says he says he wants to help fix health care. And because I'm really worried about Global Warming." He told me a few other reasons, but those were the big things for him. At this point, his younger brother, Kristian, said, "I voted for JohnMcCain (he has a knack for making phrases into single words :) ) and mommy is voting for JohnMcCain and daddy is voting for JohnMcCain. This family is voting for JohnMcCain." Braden responded, "Well I'm not. I voted for Obama."
I think he has a case of the weirds. I've been thinking that for a while now. I see him trying, sometimes quite hard, to fit into the role his family sees for him. He tries to really absorb, not just listen to, but absorb his mother's religious beliefs and it's hard for him. He believes and he wants so much for it to make sense, but it clashes with what's in his heart. He worries, very much sometimes, about how the dinosaurs fit in with the fact that his mother's faith teaches that the earth is only a few thousand years old. And he flagellates himself sometimes, seriously, because he LOVES Harry Potter and that's witchcraft and witchcraft is wrong in their beliefs.
Don't get me wrong, his mother, my sister-in-law, does not tell him he's wrong or that he shouldn't like what he does (at least that I've seen). She just tells him to take his concerns to God and pray about them. She has beliefs and they affect him, but she's really good about encouraging him to have a personal relationship with God. Still, he worries and he wonders (he's told me about it), when he'll get his epiphany from god, when he'll get the dawning understanding that his mother has said she got at 13. He worries about when he'll feel it. He doesn't use those terms, but he really does worry. I think he has a case of the family weirds.
And, to be honest, I'm proud. I can't wait to see him tonight and to hug him and to show him that the family weirds aren't always a curse. I want to do good things for both of my nephews always, but I so very much want to let Braden know that things may seem strange or hard or unfair, but that being different isn't always bad. He may stand out from his family and his peers and from the people in this area, but that you can't be Outstanding without standing out and that it's okay.
I want to hug him and enjoy this moment in history with him when the weird isn't so weird and when America has done something right for herself and the whole world. I want to tell Braden how much joy the world is feeling at just this moment and how this is a moment that will be HUGE, not just in our time, but historically. I want him to see and feel his part in it. I want him to be proud of himself as an American--young though he may be.
I want this because he's an amazing kid and these are amazing times. I want this because I know what it's like to grow up different from the rest of my family. I want this because of my Uncle Ronnie. He's dying. He'll be 58 this year and he's lived through a heart attack in the 80s and seeing his idol assassinated in the 60s and he lived long enough to see last night. He's always worked tirelessly for the Democratic party and especially so for Obama's campaign. My uncle wanted this! He almost died last year, but he made it. He worked while being deathly ill, he fought while trying to survive and he made it! He saw it.
And even though he and I just scrape along, I couldn't wait to talk to him last night. He's the chairman of the Democratic party in his city so I knew he'd be busy, but I knew he'd call here. And when he did, I could hear that he'd been crying and I told him the stories I had of yesterday and last night and he started crying again--and so, of course, did I. We just sat there on the phone, in tears, joyful and hopeful for the first time in a long time, knowing that when it counted, this country we both love didn't fail us.
I told my uncle about how mom and I got 4 people to the polls yesterday. We took a few of our neighbors to the polls here (one had never voted :) ). I told him how, after I waited in line for an hour and 44 minutes to vote, I drove straight to Ohio and knocked on Megin's door. I said to her, "I'm with the campaign to elect Barack Obama; I'm here to babysit your children so you can go get out the vote." And how I'd helped motivate her to register this year for the first time ever and how...in a tiny way, because Ohio went for Obama, I felt like mom and Megin and I all had a part in it. How...this was our victory, personally as well as nationally.
And I told him how I had worried over the last few years that I was not a patriot and how now I know that isn't true, I love my country; I just haven't been able to be very proud of it lately. But I am for last night--and that is when he broke down crying, because that is how he has felt, too. I'm finding that it is how a lot of us have felt without realizing it. "End of an Error" isn't just a joke about the Bush presidency, it's the truth. Yesterday--the voter turnout, the passion, the joy, and the fact that we did the right thing as a country--is like a great lightening, both of darkness and of the weight of so much pain and bloodshed and mistrust brought about by the last 8 years of politics in this land. And the last 200+ years of racism in general.
No, problems are not solved and, yes, there is much work to be done, the difference now is that I feel (and many people seem to feel) that it's POSSIBLE to do the work now. It feel like anything is possible and that what we do, even small acts, will actually matter--they'll help. It has felt like all work previously has affected nothing, but today--today, anything is possible and these problems we face are addressable. Moreover, I feel, finally, ready AND able to be an affective part of the solution. I haven't felt I could be that in a long time.
For that, I thank my nephew who gave me hope and my Uncle Ronnie who, I think, gave me the weird DNA, and I thank my country for doing what was right when it counted, and, mostly, I thank my new President Elect, Barack Obama.