240 years. It took 240 years to get
here, but today silenced voices spoke.
As I was thinking about this
historic day, I called my daughter into my office to talk. I wanted her to
understand the magnitude of today and I wanted talk to her about her ancestry. So,
through tears I talked with her about the women in her family who have gone
before her and fought for this moment. I explained to her that they marched,
that they protested, that they fought.
As did the men who loved them.
It wasn't until I was older that I
understood that my Dad fought alongside my Mom and her sister in the fight for
women's voices to be heard. My Dad always used to tell me that I could do
anything that I wanted to do, that there was nothing that held me back. We both
knew that he was talking about my being a girl. I can now see that he wanted
the barriers to break more than anyone. And that building me into a strong
woman is how he fought. My Father played professional football, so he knew a
bit about the game. Growing up he taught me how to throw a football straighter,
farther, and more accurately than any of the quarterbacks on the teams he
coached could ever throw. With each passing season, he would say to me
"Erin go grab the ball and show them how it's done". Barriers, walls,
ideas, thoughts, he was breaking them down one completed pass at a time. It
drove the boys crazy and it made my dad laugh.
Today his granddaughter found out
that he was right, we have a woman in the White House. The pass completed to
Kamala Harris from number 240.
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