Love Tuesday

This morning, my husband took my breath away.

Today, my husband, who had an early flight out of town, got up at 4:00 AM so that he could shovel the driveway before he left.

We knew it was going to snow overnight and I offered to leave my car at the bottom of the driveway but he didn't want me to take any chances walking up and down the hill. (I'm going through a particularly bad pain week --more about that later this week.)

So, he, quietly and without fanfare, got up at 4:00 and shoveled the drive and THEN, to make sure I didn't take any chances, he not only left me HIS car, which has four-wheel-drive, but he also took the trash down.

This is my husband who hates the cold and loves, I mean LOVES, his sleep.

I am just humbled by how good he is to me --by what a genuinely good person he is. My husband has a very big job and many people are depending on him to do big things. Yet he manages to maintain his perfect record when it comes to me: for thirteen years he has thought of everything, large and small, that might make my life easier and better. He is such a good, good man. He inspires me to be a better person --to reach deeper, to stretch, the try to be a better person, too.

I spent all day today trying to pay his kindness forward in my interactions with everyone from my own children to strangers waiting in the pick-up line.

And it is with a wide-open and humbled heart that I watched Barack Obama sworn in as the new President of the United States of America.

You know that I am not a political writer.

And that this is not a political blog.

But I spent quite a few hours watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama today and I felt exactly the same sense of awe and motivation to go forward in a different, better, more steadfast way. To seek something better from myself. To embrace this "moment that defines a generation" and allow it to change me, for the better.

My favorite moment, other than the speech (and excuse me, if you don't think that was a great speech then STOP SMOKING CRACK and read it again) was a small one and there was beauty and power to be found in it. During one moment of the festivities today, before the swearing-in and that momentous (screw the pundits) speech, Mr. Obama was sitting apart from his family, gathering his thoughts. And his wife Michelle, who was occupied in entertaining their two daughters (a task I understand in a very real way,) reached over and rested her hand on his shoulder.

Just that.

Just rested her hand on his shoulder in solidarity and comfort and love. Just as I have done a million times, just as you have done a million times, just as people DO to support and sustain those they love.

There were volumes spoken in that simple gesture. Acknowledgment of the day, of the man, of the enormous job ahead.

Know what I think? I think sometimes the good guys DO win. I think the good guys never lose sight of their goals, their responsibilities, or the needs of the people they love. And I think the good guys can motivate us to change and grow and stretch simply by virtue of their own goodness.

I also think that sometimes the good guys need a few hands extended to them in solidarity and comfort and love. In acknowledgment of the enormous tasks in front of them and the idea that sometimes our belief in them will see them through.

Congratulations, my fellow citizens of the world. I look forward to working with you.