When it’s over | Mary Sheehy Moe
By the time you read this, the voting will be done. Those who won their races will be on Cloud 9. As for those who lost ... this one's for you.
When I was 9, my dad ran for Congress. For months, he traveled the state, promoting his candidacy through speeches, signs, ads, pins — the works. He and Mom positively boomeranged from can-do to got-'er-done daily. So exciting!
He got beat in the primary. Dad didn't believe in self-pity, which left the field open for me. I wandered through our strangely quiet house the next day, my faith in everything shaken. How could OUR dad, clearly a knight in shining armor, lose? What's the matter with people? With the system? With God?
When you're dealing with loss, it helps to have a baby around. Babies understand about crying. In my childhood home, there were always babies around, little ones who wanted to be held, cuddled, cooed to. That sad day I took care of them, and they returned the favor. The world kept spinning.
Dad went on to win — and lose — other elections. When it came to me running, though, he was hard to read. He didn't want me to run for the legislature, for instance. Yet before my second session, when I learned my daughter was having triplets and realized she'd need my help, he didn't want me to resign. Go figure.
He liked to come to the floor sessions on the off-chance I'd speak. Senate staffers held their breath as he made his careful way across the high, steep, tightly packed gallery, cane in hand — a hard thing for a proud man to do. But he did it.
The week before I resigned, a staffer ran to find me after the floor session because Dad had fallen by his car out in the parking lot. Several people helped him to his feet, and by the time I arrived, there was just an empty space where he had been.
Ten weeks later, two sisters called to tell me Dad died. Fortunately, I had three babies around. Four, if you count me. And they did help. With adults you have to say things like, "Well, it was time, wasn't it. Ninety-nine. Housebound. Dependent. Not his cup of tea."
No need for such blather with babies. You just hold one in your arms, look into his solemn eyes, and tell him a story that's true though it sounds like a fairy tale, the story of a great-grandfather he'll never know. The baby tilts his head quizzically because your voice sounds different. Hoarse. Faltering. So, holding him close to your heart, you sway a slow foxtrot and sing the song your father always sang to you, the song you sang to your baby sister after that first loss:
"Every cloud must have a silver lining. Wait until the sun shines through ...."
And you are once again that baby, that 9-year-old, that ne'er-do-well, that senator, ostensibly far away, but essentially just as closely held by your father as this baby is by you.
The song ends. The baby is asleep in your arms. But you keep swaying, lingering in the silver lining ...and treasuring this little life, warming the empty space where he had been.
Loss is life's toughest lesson and its one inevitability. You never master it, but the effort brings acceptance, gratitude and, amazingly, sometimes even joy. (It helps to have a baby around.)
So love your way through it, candidates. And whatever your party, thank you for running. Campaigning is hard. Losing is harder. But your willingness to do both makes this child we call America keep on growing ... by believing in silver linings.
Mary Sheehy Moe is a retired educator and former state senator, school board trustee, and city commissioner from Great Falls. Now living in Missoula, she writes a weekly column for Lee Montana.
