Election Letter to My Daughter

Normally I do not post personal writings on LinkedIN. But this moment in history says wherever there are voters, we need to speak. Loudly. Clearly. Fairly. I hope everyone will write a letter to a female voter in the coming weeks. You just never know. CM

My dearest daughter, Sarah,

I write this to you with the numbers still too close to call. I imagine in my mind so many mothers writing letters to their daughters alongside me. Filled with fear and yet, still hopeful.

This election is not a sure thing. How is that possible? How is it possible that I am writing this letter again, after the one I wrote four years ago today?

After everything that I’m too weary to list, how is this possible?

I found this picture of you when you were seven years old during the Anita Hill hearings, which I guess I should call the Clarence Thomas hearings, although they really weren’t about him. They were about slandering her and diminishing her and the story she told with such dignity.

Now, thirty years later, you’ve graduated from Harvard Law School and work in service to the intelligence committee in the Senate. You worked on the Innocence Project, been awarded by the ACLU for your work, served as one of the authors of the articles of both impeachments against Donald Trump, and started a program in the prisons of DC where prisoners are now debating the debate team from Georgetown University. You worked as a volunteer legal advisor to Joe Biden’s campaign and served as one of the founders of The Early Vote 2020. I watched you on MSNBC four years ago: sure-footed, clear, and selfless in your appeal to get people to vote early and in person. I watched you transition from a little girl selling T-shirts on 84th and Broadway — which was my political pinnacle — to a force in the world of American progress, trying, always trying, to do right for those less fortunate than we are. I could not be prouder of you. I know you have already lived a life of service to your country and humanity that is more than most do in a lifetime. More than I have done. I am grateful to you, and I am in awe.

Someone once told me that he wanted to put his kids on his shoulders so they could see further than his horizon had been growing up. I think that’s a wonderful aspiration, and while I didn’t have it in my mind when you were young, it is certainly what I can see now. Oh, the horizons in front of you! If only you knew how far you have already been able to see, and what that means for your future. Please learn the lesson of looking at what you have accomplished, rather than what you haven’t. It clears the path to move forward without you getting hung up in the rearview mirror.

But I’m afraid. I want you to have the freedom to continue this journey, and I’m not sure you will if this election goes red. I have never felt that way before. What if you don’t have the freedoms that I had? Holy shit, how did we get here?

There are forty-three days left until the election. I will not allow thoughts of anything other than success for all the things so many of us are doing to make the outcome one where we can start to build a new future for this country from the ashes of what has been destroyed.

I’m not just speaking of the destruction that has taken place over the past four years he was in office, but also the explosion of what had been simmering throughout all the previous years, and the evil that has been done in the past four years to try and win this upcoming election.

Today I hold on to the image of you when you were seven and what you have done since. I hold on to the images of the young girls I see on social media, now reaping what you and your fabulous women friends have planted over these past years and months. I see the crowds of mothers and daughters showing up for Kamala and Tim, who feel like first-name politicians who we can believe in. And, I hold out hope.

How can I, on behalf of my generation, thank you, apologize, and move on, recognizing that what we weren’t able to do, you are trying to clean up now?

I have a photo of you on MSNBC last week and the one from when you were seven on my computer screen and in my heart. They will carry me through the upcoming weeks with hope and certainty that every single thing that can be done is being done.

The future of women in America? It’s in our hands. It’s our votes that will determine the outcome. Yes, it’s women who will decide this election. I am sure of it. I hope that every mother will know that we cannot go down without a fight. Getting out the vote. New voters. Young voters, women, and young women who can stop this dark cloud that hangs over our country.

God bless you, my dearest child. Godspeed to all the girls and women on our journey to a win over the upcoming weeks. I will be right behind you all, ready to shoulder whatever you give me to help you lead the way.

I love you, Mom