Why am I always in the kitchen when momentous things happen? I was prepping for a small dinner party last night, slicing cucumbers and washing berries, when my phone played a series of bells that meant only one thing – Aunt Kiki sent a text!
“Biben Drops Out of Presidential Race.”
It was a NYT’s headline. I had to sit down. My reaction was visceral, nausea followed immediately by goosebumps. The family text chain began, my adult children all weighing in with the Rocker’s digital sound from LA and the Bride’s iconic melody from Rehoboth Beach pinging from my phone as Bob pivoted from making (yes making from scratch) pasta and turned on the TV. It was finally official, our President bowed out after succumbing to Covid and the incessant pressure of his Democratic colleagues.
The family didn’t have to take the car keys away, he gave them up willingly. I started to cry just a little with relief from the last month of speculation and an impending sense of doom. I had wanted Biden to stay the course, I wanted to believe our country would be able to differentiate between a mensch and a conman. But my son, one of the original Bernie Bros, and my daughter, a Mayor Pete believer, have grown into good Democrats with a capital “D.” I knew the younger generation was right, and I could feel the excitement rising as I dressed the salad.
Our friends walked in with a gorgeous peach pie.
I remember when Bobby Kennedy was shot in a hotel kitchen in 1968. It was the end of an era. I was 19 years old; bereft, about to marry the rebound boyfriend, and still grieving the loss of my ‘one true love.’ I stood in the long line of mourners at St Patrick’s Cathedral to pay my respects to the Senator from New York. It was a beautiful but exceptionally hot day in June; I nearly fainted from lack of sleep and a simmering depression.
“He was, of course, an extraordinary man, a complex one; each time we saw him there was more to see. He could never be accurately measured, especially in terms of the past; he was always in the process of becoming. He was responsive to change, and changed himself. These changes were always attributed to his driving desire to win—except by those who knew him, who were aware of his great capacity for growth, his dedication, the widening of his concern. The people around him, we found, adored him—there is no other word. They would do anything for him, go any distance—and part of it was because they were convinced he would do the same for them.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1968/06/15/When-New-York-City-Mourned-RFK
This was written about RFK, but it describes Joe Biden as well. Remember that he kickstarted marriage equality, that his first years on the Hill were forged through pain and loss. That he took the train home every weekend from Washington to be with his two young sons. We all know his story, an Irish Catholic from Scranton, just like my birth family. The Bride wrote Joe a letter when she was in 7th Grade, asking him to run for President, and he wrote back to her.
We Democrats are NOT a cult of personality. We do not blame God for political assassinations, or for surviving them intact… with maybe a little cartilage missing. We do not think there are good people on both sides of a line in Charlottesville. We don’t separate refugee children from their parents. We know where to draw that line, at corruption and sexual predation. We knew this election was an existential crisis for our country, some of us whispered this fact and some shouted. But the fear of violence, the fear of banning books and eroding our public schools, our public TRUST, the fear of a SCOTUS that would allow our fundamental human rights to be challenged is starting to abate.
Families fight, and they forgive. They also visit unexpectedly with four Scottish Deerhounds! Democrats are energized, and we are hopeful once again and for that Mr President, your country thanks you.
