Page 55

 I stand corrected.  It was page 55 of Promise Me Dad that got to me when I read it for the first time.  As Vice President, Joe had been asked to attend a funeral for some police officers in New York and he was talking to a widow.  

Here's the passage - 

The last thing I did before we left the bedroom was to give her my private phone number.  "Right now, you know, everyone is going to be there for you," I explained.  "Everyone will surround you with love and you'll be busy and have things to keep your mind off the worst."  And then in six weeks, or maybe twelve weeks, everybody else's life is going to start to get back to normal.  But your life isn't going to be normal again.  As a matter of fact, as you probably understand already, it's going to get harder for you.  And after a while you're going to start to feel guilty because you're going to be going to the same people constantly for help, or just to talk.  And as their lives get back to normal, you are going to start to worry about leaning on them too much.  There might come a time when you think I'm asking too much.  I've got to stop complaining.

So when you're down and you feel guilty for burdening your family and friends," I said, "pick up the phone and call me."  I got the sense she didn't quite believe I was entirely sincere.  But I was.  I have a long list of stranger who have my private number, and an invitation to call, and many of them do.  "Just call me when you want to talk," I told her.  "Sometimes it's easier to pour your heart out to somebody you don't know well, but you know they know.  You know they've been through it.  Just pick up the phone and call me.


That passage got me.  I needed someone like that when I got sick and scared. I didn't feel like I had anyone to talk to in that way.  It was pat pat pat on the head.  My mom was mourning her sister who died two days after my diagnosis.  My sister and her family lived in Florida and I felt like a burden.  Everyone had advice or wanted to tell me what to do.  Nobody listened.  Nobody listened.


I had wished that Joe ran in 2016.  I am so grateful that he ran when he did and he has my utmost respect.  As they said tonight, he's still saving democracy.  I want him to pardon Hunter and I want his family to shower him with love and kindness because he's a good person.  We're all better people for having Joe Biden as our president.  

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