Timing
This is going to be a weird anecdote (and also probably extremely depressing), but it's the first thing that I thought of when I heard that Obama's grandmother died, so I'm going to tell it and you can read what you want.*
*I'm going to preface this whole story by saying that you'd be hard-pressed to find a man that was happier in his life than my grandfather was. From the moment he was born until the moment he died, he was never anything but the greatest man that ever lived.
My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. He got captured while fighting for the Polish army in 1940, and was sent to a death camp. Incidentally, his first wife and his baby son were exterminated by the Nazis, taken away while he was out looking for some bread to feed them while they were in the Warsaw Ghetto.
In addition to having 5 years of his late 20s and early 30s taken away by Nazis, he also had a pretty rough childhood. He grew up in the poorest part of Warsaw, his mother died when he was young and his father remarried a woman that used to beat the hell out of my grandfather and his sister.*
*So yeah, he had it pretty easy. I mean, I had to go to the cleaners this morning and get this, they won't even get my shirts back to me before Wednesday. What the fuck, right? Is the fucking Universe out to get me or something?
Anyway, this stepmother of his was a pretty awful lady. In addition to beating up innocent children, she also neglected them. She didn't feed them all that often, barely made sure they had a clean place to sleep, and generally did the opposite of what you're supposed to do with children.
She died on September 1, 1939, literally the day before Germany invaded Poland and took all the Jews off to murder them. They managed to kill 3 million Polish Jews and tortured millions more before it was all said and done, but my step-great-grandmother wasn't one of them. And what I've always found so insane about this is that she died never even seeing the war start in earnest. It's not to say that she deserved to die at the hands of brutal killers, but all the shit that happened to my poor, innocent grandfather never happened to her because she died before it could. She died thinking that all the stuff going on in Europe was a small, regional skirmish, not World War II.
And so it is with Madelyn Dunham. She doesn't get to find out the outcome. She dies one day before her grandson (hopefully) is the first non-white dude elected president of the United States. The boy that she raised to believe that he could do anything is about to do something that no one else has ever done before (hopefully). The reality is that she meant more to this presidential race that just about anyone else. Her values shaped the man that could (and should be) president as much as anyone else.
I don't believe in things like "God," but I've heard all the stories. And this one sounds a whole lot like what happened to Moses, bringing the commandments to the people, bringing them right up to the front door of Israel, but not able to cross the threshold himself.
This is going to sound pretty strange, but I think my step-great-grandmother wasn't allowed to live through the Holocaust, because everyone that lived through it came out stronger and more resolute and the Jews got Israel out of the deal. And someone as wicked as her just didn't deserve to see all that come to pass, no matter what she would have had to suffer through to get there.
Why doesn't Mrs. Dunham get to find out the result? I'm not 100% sure, but like Moses didn't get to go into Israel, it's enough that he got everyone else there. For Mrs. Dunham, she gave us her grandson. Hopefully, that'll be enough for us, too.
*I'm going to preface this whole story by saying that you'd be hard-pressed to find a man that was happier in his life than my grandfather was. From the moment he was born until the moment he died, he was never anything but the greatest man that ever lived.
My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. He got captured while fighting for the Polish army in 1940, and was sent to a death camp. Incidentally, his first wife and his baby son were exterminated by the Nazis, taken away while he was out looking for some bread to feed them while they were in the Warsaw Ghetto.
In addition to having 5 years of his late 20s and early 30s taken away by Nazis, he also had a pretty rough childhood. He grew up in the poorest part of Warsaw, his mother died when he was young and his father remarried a woman that used to beat the hell out of my grandfather and his sister.*
*So yeah, he had it pretty easy. I mean, I had to go to the cleaners this morning and get this, they won't even get my shirts back to me before Wednesday. What the fuck, right? Is the fucking Universe out to get me or something?
Anyway, this stepmother of his was a pretty awful lady. In addition to beating up innocent children, she also neglected them. She didn't feed them all that often, barely made sure they had a clean place to sleep, and generally did the opposite of what you're supposed to do with children.
She died on September 1, 1939, literally the day before Germany invaded Poland and took all the Jews off to murder them. They managed to kill 3 million Polish Jews and tortured millions more before it was all said and done, but my step-great-grandmother wasn't one of them. And what I've always found so insane about this is that she died never even seeing the war start in earnest. It's not to say that she deserved to die at the hands of brutal killers, but all the shit that happened to my poor, innocent grandfather never happened to her because she died before it could. She died thinking that all the stuff going on in Europe was a small, regional skirmish, not World War II.
And so it is with Madelyn Dunham. She doesn't get to find out the outcome. She dies one day before her grandson (hopefully) is the first non-white dude elected president of the United States. The boy that she raised to believe that he could do anything is about to do something that no one else has ever done before (hopefully). The reality is that she meant more to this presidential race that just about anyone else. Her values shaped the man that could (and should be) president as much as anyone else.
I don't believe in things like "God," but I've heard all the stories. And this one sounds a whole lot like what happened to Moses, bringing the commandments to the people, bringing them right up to the front door of Israel, but not able to cross the threshold himself.
This is going to sound pretty strange, but I think my step-great-grandmother wasn't allowed to live through the Holocaust, because everyone that lived through it came out stronger and more resolute and the Jews got Israel out of the deal. And someone as wicked as her just didn't deserve to see all that come to pass, no matter what she would have had to suffer through to get there.
Why doesn't Mrs. Dunham get to find out the result? I'm not 100% sure, but like Moses didn't get to go into Israel, it's enough that he got everyone else there. For Mrs. Dunham, she gave us her grandson. Hopefully, that'll be enough for us, too.
posted by G.Wo @ 4:37 PM
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