What does it feel like to be there at a historic moment, a moment of history (a happy one)? The moment it happens, people say things like "this is big, this is so big" or "this is the most important thing that's happened in my lifetime" or "this is like the man on the moon." You fight back tears. Even in secular Manhattan, as the pro secco flows, someone calls out "God bless America" and all concur.As it settles in, it gets even bigger. You think of all the others who have been watching the results come in, in your city, your state, other states. (If you're me you also think of thosewho voted for the other guy, but not just yet.) Other countries, every country in the world. This was possible? If this was possible, then America... democracy... history isn't over.
And you start to think of those who died too soon to experience this moment. Generations struggled for this possibility. Impossible not to hear Martin Luther King's voice in the back of your mind, the same familiar words about a dream and the content of a man's character, incantatory repetitions in a permanent loop, but with a smile in his voice this time, a new twinkle in his eye. But I also found myself thinking of my paternal grandfather, whom I confess I haven't thought much about in years (he died while I was in college). I remember being so moved to learn that he supported the United Negro College Fund every year (he didn't finish college himself). Don't know how he would have voted, but he would have been proud, proud.
