October 6, 2020. Four weeks from election day

Dear Child of Tomorrow,

I think of you often. I wonder what your life will be, and what you will look like. What endearing features will light up your chubby face when you smile? Will you have the same button nose I inherited from a beloved grandmother? Maybe curly auburn hair? Or will it be wavy light brown with blond streaks like mine was? Dark eyes that sparkle in evening light? Or eyes the azure of a cloudless summer sky, like my grandmother’s?

Of course, you will be a girl—a compassionate, resilient, brave little girl growing into a nurturing role model among your peers. That is my dream.

But your name? What moniker will your parents bestow upon you?

For two weeks, I have been addressing postal cards and writing notes to people I have never met, nor will ever meet, from a list sent to volunteers around this nation. It is a humongous effort to encourage reluctant citizens to vote in the November 3 election. In just four weeks, we will decide the future course of our nation. Will we turn toward democratic values? Will people be a step closer to governing themselves? Will our elected representatives be willing to seek compromise in demands from extreme viewpoints and meet in the middle for the good of all? Will they respect and honor each and every person, to hear every voice, and cherish every soul?

Or will we be plunged deeper into chaos and despair, cowering in fear and hate, mistrust and suspicion, divided by the antics and ridicule tweeted by our current leadership? For your sake, little one, I hope democracy prevails, and grows stronger in the generations between mine and yours.

What will the world look like seven generations hence? And what name will you be known by? There are so many names on my postal list, delicious names, unique names. There are good old-fashioned names: Erica, Nancy, Vivian. And there are names I’ve never encountered in all my years. Aymee. Nashawnna, Aaliyah. Egma.

I try to imagine these people. What age of woman would Jalyssa be? What ethnicity? What is Dyhalma’s occupation? Does Mirtha have children? If so, what age would the youngsters be? How does Lesharda spend her days? What challenges does Vida face? How about Tahirah? What’s her life like? Does Ilfrid have a supportive spouse? Or an abusive one? What keeps Zhone from voting in many elections?

There are so many names on the list. I take a moment to marvel at the diversity in this country, evident even in a list of registered voters. And I remember, from early ecology studies, how diversity lends stability. We need them all. We need their strengths, their opinions, their concerns. We need them healthy and educated.

Basti and Wysline. Judieky and Yatara. We need all these people to bolster our flailing democracy—for you, sweet girl, seven generations hence.

I will never know the name given to you, so I think of my own. My parents chose simple, traditional names for their three daughters, my three-letter name the simplest of all. The story Mother told about choosing our names was based on a recollection from her girlhood. In her small-town Kansas school, she had a classmate named Euphracine. Poor Euphracine’s name was hardly simple. It was years before she could correctly spell her own moniker, to the mockery of her classmates. Adamant that her own daughters never be similarly ridiculed, Mother bestowed simple names on us, ones we could spell as toddlers. I have always wondered if she expected her girls to be intellectually challenged—me most of all with the name Ann. Three letters. A. N. N. Plain. Ordinary. Simply Ann.

But I have few regrets through the decades of my life, so Ann was okay after all. It combines well with other words and syllables. I will think of you, a great-granddaughter of my unborn great-granddaughter, as Septanna. “Sep” is for the seven generations separating us. “Anna” for the connection to my essence. You will, of course, have many other genetic connections as your ancestors are conceived. But there will be a thread that leads back to me.

With hope that we can pull off the tidal wave of change we need in four weeks, I’ll call you Septanna Hope. Tanna for short sounds good. And I wonder what the world will be in your time. In my family, seven generations span two centuries. Two hundred years from now, will there even be life left on this gem of a planet? Will compassion and responsibility prevail to change our calamitous course?

For your sake, I hope so. And so I write. I write cards to strangers and I connect for a brief moment with 200 people I will never meet, one for each year that separates you and me. I say, “Dear Ruby, Glenice, Marisol, Joyce . . . Dear Laura, Fatemeh, Karen and Casandra, Let’s join together, let’s rise up, let’s vote our future in the Tuesday, November 3 election! For the sake of our children and theirs, we must vote with hope and compassion.”

For your sake, we must prevail, my Dream for a New Day, Septanna Hope, a blip on future’s horizon.

With enduring love from your 7^th generation grandmother,

Ann