"My mother, myself, my president" - Julia Ramirez

Interestingly, over time, across continents, and due to who knows what, I have lost touch with my closest high school friends.

Even more interestingly, thanks to the Internet, class reunions, and informal gathering, I have a number of good, close friends, who I went to high school with, but who I did not know particularly well at the time. They are my good, close friends from high school.

My good friend from high school, Julia Ramirez, posted this beautiful note to her Facebook profile yesterday. With her permission, I am able to share it with you:

I’ve never been especially close to my mother. Well, mainly in my teens and 20s, but when I hit 30, it changed. I became fearless in telling her the truth – my truth – letting her know when she’s done or said something that hurt me – things that crossed the line, things I didn’t appreciate. It, the truth, might not have always been welcomed on her part and was made quite clear by her choosing, at times, to express her annoyance by simply hanging up on me. But I never stayed mad at her. She’s from a different generation, a different mindset but one that I’d never be a part of. And now as an adult and, hopefully, a mature woman, even though I still want to scream at her, I've learned to look past the moments of aggravation. I love her. Implicitly. And when it comes to historic events, such as today, I can’t help but seek out her thoughts, her feelings, her words. So I called her and she left me feeling more hopeful than I ever thought I could be.

We spoke about the Obama children, Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton, but the conversation ultimately went back to her vivid memories of the Kennedy and King assassinations – such pain was obvious in her voice. She talked specifically about the day Kennedy was assassinated. She was worried when my two older brothers – who were in Catholic elementary school – hadn’t come home at their usual times; neither had my father, and was terrified something awful had happened to them all. Finally, they arrived an hour later than expected, and ran to my mother asking her if she knew why they were late. She had a feeling but waited for them to tell her: “President Kennedy was shot and the sisters told us to go to church and pray.” My father, for some reason felt compelled to say, “It happened in Texas.”

“Why did it matter where it happened, I don’t know,” my mom said. Though, dad followed up by saying, “I hope it wasn’t a Mexican who did it.”

She couldn’t believe they laughed at such a horrific time, but maybe it helped – in some miniscule way – to lessen the hurt, if only for a minute. But she mostly wanted to talk about what had happened, wanted to discuss – share this – with her family.

Although the conversation was all over the board – just as is this post – we agreed that neither one of us ever thought we'd ever see the day a black man would become a president. But she ultimately ended the discussion with Nixon’s impeachment. “I was at work that day and we were watching in the break room. Many cheered, and not to say I didn’t agree, but I felt so sorry for Pat Nixon.” She couldn’t fathom the humiliation, “to be thrown out for something she had absolutely nothing to do with. I couldn’t imagine.” And though no one in my family has ever been Republican, and probably never will be (who knows?), that was the closest I ever heard my mother speak in nonpartisan terms, and it made me happy. It made me optimistic. It made me realize that I not only voted for the right person, I chose the right person to talk to on this unbelievably amazing day.

So, it looks like Nipsy Russell – although, joking – was wrong when he asked: “Can a black man ever be president? Yes; if he runs against a Mexican.”

Man, how I wish you were here, Nipsy.

I love you, mom.

Godspeed, President Obama.