Tag: 2024 election

On the Verge

On By AnnIn Eldering, Healing, Just for Today, Loss and GriefLeave a comment

Remember what it was like. After a long wait, it finally happened. With guarded optimism, you look forward to the big event. Though you know things can happen, chances are you won’t be in that slim margin. So you dance. You laugh. You hug everyone and share the good news. You imagine life after the event, the realization of a dream come true. The anticipation of anniversaries, holidays, and journeys to wondrous locations, savoring the unfettered excitement as your long-awaited dream discovers the world. Never a dull moment. Of course there will be challenges, but nothing you can’t work through and be stronger for it. You look forward to years of living, loving, and learning together.

Until there are none.

It all comes crashing down. Something was wrong at a routine checkpoint. No  heart beat. Emergency trip to the hospital. Before you have time to process the news, joy morphs into heartbreak. A birth becomes a funeral. It’s over. Dreams die hard.

After November 5, it struck me how similar the election loss was to the loss of an infant. Though it’s been decades ago, I feel the same sad aimless wandering and hopelessness with the election results as with my two sweet babes who died before they had a chance to live. Gone are the anticipated celebrations and birth anniversaries. Gone are all the anticipated years of discovering the world together. Gone are the memories and the history I looked forward to making.

Every morning brings more bad news to my inbox and I move through life on the verge of tears, almost—yet not quite—ready to open the floodgates.

How will I manage the coming hard times? How will I step forward, keep moving, go through the motions, when my heart is sorely wounded? How can I show up for others when I can’t even manage to cheer myself up? Where did all the good in the world, all the anticipated conquests of our precarious future—where did they go?

One of the writers I follow suggested asking two questions every day.

  • What do I still know and believe as truth?
  • Is my heart still beating?

In other words, my values remain and I can embrace them until my dying breath. It reminds me of the weeks and months following the burials of my sweet babes. It’s been forty years. (Almost 43 for the first and 42 for the second.) How did I work through the devastation?

Perhaps some things I did then will help now too. I journaled regularly, poured my soul onto pages in my notebooks. With tiny locks of hair and photos that spoke to me, I made lockets and hung them near my heart. Little by little, I dared to venture forth. I told myself I would make choices and take actions—small at first—but I would do it for the lost children. I would live for those who didn’t have the chance, and I would face each day for the sake of my lost loved ones. I would do my best to make a good life. For them.

I don’t know what lies ahead, though I face it with a certain amount of dread. I can only work with what is here, today, and do my best to make a difference for my family and for as many others as I can.

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
― John Wesley

Grieve and then Resist

On By AnnIn Activism, elections, Loss and Grief, social justiceLeave a comment

Here we are, one week post-election, one week post D-day (diagnosis day for our flailing democracy.) Most of you share the horror and grief I feel after the count, so I’m “preaching to the choir” so to speak. If you happen to be someone who felt smug and victorious after the tally, I don’t know what to say to you. When my nephew was left homeless after a hurricane ravaged his mountain town (Asheville) 400 miles inland, when cousins in southern California find their neighborhood threatened by raging wildfires, when my Cuban friend’s parents near Havana have been without electricity for weeks, I am dumbstruck to realize so many of my countrymen would vote for an aging insurrectionist, convicted felon, rapist, and conman when one of his first orders of business is to increase the drilling and use of fossil fuels.

Are you one who would object, “But wait, I didn’t vote for him!”  Yet at the same time, you couldn’t bring yourself to vote for the one candidate who had the best chance to defeat the ugliness and destruction that’s bound to happen. Since my first visit abroad in 1977, I have worked to disprove the myth of the “ugly American.” Yet with this election, you have helped engrave it deeper in the history of the world.

Most of my friends, though, feel as I do. We’re compatriots, we’re family in a broad adoptive sense of the word, and I take comfort from our conversations and correspondence. We need each other to talk to, to share our mutual pain, our disbelief, and our fears. It means a lot to me that we have connected, not only during the weeks before November 5, but in the days since. Bolstering friendships has been one positive thing to come from this heartbreak.

A couple of thoughts about the outcome. I find a smidge of agreement on one of the MAGA points, though the target is polar opposite of theirs. We should beware one certain immigrant from South Africa who just bought a president with his billions.

For those who were all about—“Oh, the New World Order! We can’t have that. Biden has those plans in WRITING!”

Welcome to the New World Order. After the election, Elon Musk crowed on his X account, “Novus ordo seclorum” (Latin for New World Order.) And the written plan? Project 2025, which some have claimed was all lies. They aren’t even trying to deny the project now, and it has been in WRITING the whole time.

For the rest of us who are hurting and grieving over what we’ve lost—a country founded on democratic principles—I will say a few words about grief. We’ve probably all faced loss at some earlier point in our lives. As someone intimately familiar with that deepest of human emotions, I will remind you that you are not alone. Please remember that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to grieve. Allow yourself the privilege to mourn as you are called to, and then join the resistance. I caution you not to blame yourself for the election’s outcome, especially if you did everything you could to prevent the disaster. Try to avoid assigning blame to others, also. There is likely a myriad cluster of circumstances that brought this on us and we will all suffer the consequences together. Some groups will feel it first and worst. We need to support those of our friends who are at greatest risk.

From my own history of loss and recovery, I will offer this: it’s easier in small doses. One day at a time. One hour. Maybe even minute by minute. To that end, I plan to start a thread called, “Just for Today,” in which I’ll share ideas for facing the world and resisting the worst, finding resilience and ways to persevere. If you have ideas to share, let me know.

(See Post #1 Just for Today: I will find something beautiful provided by Nature.)

“I’m Not Going to Vote”

On By AnnIn Activism, electionsLeave a comment

I’ve heard that from a few people lately. The reason they give is that they don’t like either candidate. Not one or the other, as if there is only one race on the ballot.

Obviously, they are referring to the presidential race, but there always others on the ballot. Every congressional representative must be elected or re-elected on a two-year schedule. Some US Senators are up for re-election also, though none from Kansas are this year.

The state Senate is a different story. My hometown is electing both state Senator and local representative. These are important races. In addition, there are county, city, precinct and township races, judges at the district level, and judges in the State Appeals court, not to mention a very important State Board of Education race.

You don’t have to vote for the presidential electors if you don’t want to, but consider the races closer to home that will impact your life as much as the presidential outcome—or even more.

Back to the presidential contest. This election cycle has been called one of the most important—if not THE MOST important—election of our lives. There is a lot at stake for us in America, but also for our allies around the world. My personal election history has not been overwhelming. I can’t think of one candidate I ever voted for who thought exactly as I did and listed priorities to match mine. You could say that I have never really “liked” any candidate for president.

Does that mean I didn’t vote? Of course not. Does it mean I shouldn’t have bothered? No way. In my family, thoughtful voting was billed as an adult responsibility. I’d never shirk my duty. In most cases, I cast my presidential vote for the person who most closely aligned with my values. Sometimes it was simply who I thought would do less damage—not so much voting “for” my favorite but voting “against” someone who raised grave concerns in my mind.

This could be such an election for those friends who “don’t like” either candidate. Consider voting against the least desirable ticket. But using the excuse that you don’t like either one is not a valid excuse to ignore voting altogether. We simply must do it. For most of us, our votes are our only voice in this grand self-governing experiment. Though we don’t have a perfect system, it’s better than those of many other countries. I wouldn’t give it up so casually.

Turning to the electoral college, it seems apparent to me that that particular arrangement needs to be revised and updated. Since my first presidential election opportunity (in 1976) I have only once cast my vote for the candidate who captured the state electors to the electoral college. And that was an election which ended up going to the other candidate nationally. In subsequent elections, my vote in sometimes matched the national winner, but the state electors stood for the other candidate. It could be said that my vote for the last 48 years has been pointless. I admit it does get discouraging to think that my vote never really counts for much. But when the candidate I voted for won—even though my electors went the other way—it was exhilarating, though my vote amounted to essentially nothing.

Should I just stop voting in presidential elections? I don’t think so. It’s still important to be an adult and shoulder my responsibilities. To simply not vote is the same as giving up and giving in. Somewhere I read that you aren’t really beaten until you quit trying. So I persevere. And I urge you to do the same. The futures envisioned by each of the 2024 presidential candidates are vastly different—scary as hell in one case.

Which do you want to support?