cat named pig

Siena and I were driving home from a doctor’s appointment a little after 11:00 this morning. We listened to Vice President Biden take the Oath of Office, then I pulled the car over to the side of the road. 

“Why are we stopping, Mama?”

“So we can listen. Barack Obama is about to raise his right hand and promise to be a good president, to take good care of our country and the world.”

We sat there in the car, parked in front of some stranger’s house, listening as Barack Obama officially became the forty-fourth president of the United States. 

Siena listened quietly, probably not understanding most of the words but clearly understanding that I thought this was a big deal. When everyone started cheering in the background I turned to Siena and gave her hand a squeeze.

“This is a really big day for our country. I hope you will remember this when you’re older.”

…..

I remember being younger and hearing my parents talk about where they were and what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I know where each of my friends was the morning of 9/11, because we have told and retold each other our versions of that day’s events so many times.  

I look forward to telling and retelling the events of this morning, a positive moment in history instead of a tragedy. How we toured an elementary school we’re considering for kindergarten this fall. How we then headed to the pediatrician (because what else do we do these days?) and pulled over on the way home to hear Barack Obama be sworn in. How we came home and watched the rest of the ceremony on TV amid multiple requests for snacks, milk, bubbles, and ballet slippers. 

I want this day to be one of those indelible memories, one of those big events that everyone places in the context of their own personal histories, to look back on where they were when this particular piece of History (capital H) took place.

If Siena doesn’t remember the details herself, I hope she will hear them from us enough times that she will be able to tell her own grandkids about where she was when Barack Obama became president. 

…..

At home, as we listen to Elizabeth Alexander’s Praise Song:

“Where are his daughters, Mama? Where are Sasha and Malia?”

Then we see them, a brief close-up before the camera pans the crowd.

“WHOA! They’re having the presidential conversation outside?!?” 

And that’s where we were when Barack Obama became president. Four-and-a-half, full of questions and trying to understand it all, and almost-two, completely oblivious and happily playing with puzzles. Twenty-nine and thirty-one, looking at this day as a bright spot in a dark winter, hopeful for the future but aware of the challenges. All of us happy to take a short break from work, housework, pediatrician appointments, all the business of daily life, to mark this moment in history.

Where were you when Barack Obama became president?