Thursday, October 23, 2008

A "stunt" I wish I'd pulled

I read a lot of blogs, most of them progressive, but I like to keep up with the wingnutosphere as well sometimes, just for the humor value, and today I read something I found offensive and just couldn't shake.

The right wing's wingnuts are claiming all sorts of nonsensical self-serving explanations for Obama's brief campaign suspension (note: not really a suspension if everyone else is still stumping, but whatever.) Some are humorous - the idea that he's actually going to Hawaii to deal with a lawsuit related to the old birth certificate nonsense, for one. But mostly they were cynical. The one that really got me was the claim that taking time off from his campaign today and tomorrow to fly back to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother is a stunt. 

A stunt?

A few years ago I was on tour when my grandfather, pictured here the previous Christmas, fell into his last struggle with cancer. We were incredibly lucky - he lived for much longer after the first bout than we had any right to expect, but when he was dying, I was on the road, and didn't have the chance to visit him. My tour ended just in time for me to fly home for the wake and the funeral. Fortunately, my grandmother, my mom and all her siblings were there with him, and mom says he might not have even known that I was there had I rushed back, but I still regret that I didn't just leave the tour to go see him - I thought I would have enough time, I thought the extra week wouldn't matter. It did.

I hope that Barack Obama's grandmother lives many more years, but if not, I'm glad that he has his priorities straight. 

2 comments:

Luciapup said...

This was such an amazing post. Thanks for taking politics out of the picture.

laura k said...

Excellent post. I harbour a terrible regret about not coming home from a baseball road trip when one of our dogs was sick.

We didn't know how sick she was. She hung on til we returned, then died. (We had lost our first dog less than a year earlier.)

I hugely relate to your memories and feelings about your grandfather. I hope you do better with those regrets than I have.