The First

He holds the door for me as I climb into the car. Imagine, I finally made it—first African America Female President of the United States!  It was a hard fought campaign and it took a lot of energy, money and prayers to make it happen.  My opponents said it couldn’t be done, especially since I’m also a single parent.  Believe me, I almost gave up, almost thought it would be impossible for me to become the most powerful person in the Western world.

As the car passed the throngs of people, waving and shouting, I thought back to the first moment I thought about my presidential run four years earlier.  My daughter and I were sitting in the living room of our modest, but tasteful home watching television, We saw on television a panel where five men were discussing the hot button topic of the time—female privacy.  We listened in disbelief as they argued over policies regarding breast and cervical cancer treatments, birth control and of course the issue of choice.  They were sitting, smug and condescendingly talking about making decisions regarding subjects in which they were inadequately schooled.  I sat there thinking, “These morons are making decisions about women, without discussing them with women.  Someone needs to be in charge – someone with a uterus!”  My daughter at me and said simply, “Don’t you have one?”  My mouth fell open and she just kept looking at me.  Sputtering, I said, “Ye….sss, but…” She followed that with one single word – “Well?” Out of the mouth of babes!

So I slept on it, thinking in the morning she would have forgotten about the whole thing. At breakfast, over cereal, she showed me her ideas for campaign slogans, posters, oh and what I would say when I won the nomination! She was serious and apparently there was no turning back, me and my big mouth.

The limousine was almost to the capitol building and I looked across at my daughter.  She returned the look, smiling at me.  “You did it, Mom.  Now there’s someone in the White House with the right anatomy to handle the tough decisions.”  As we pulled up, I realized there was something we had given each other on this journey:  I gave her someone to emulate.  And she had given me belief in myself.