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My phone rings, and I answer, freezing in my rushed stance, in the middle of the hallway. My hand trembles, but it moves quickly. I slide the receiver out and put it to my ear.
“Hello?” I say quickly, my breath catching hoping that I would hear the great news and yet hoping that I wouldn’t because that would mean it wasn’t too late for me to get near a computer or television. The voice on the other end paused for a split second, and then spoke.
“Didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?” I replied, my strong tone suddenly taking on the presence of a mouse’s squeak. I slowly braced myself up against the wall. The voice on the other end of the phone became almost immediately hysterical.
“Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you hear? It’s done! It’s done!”
“W…What does that mean?” I asked, not wanting to force myself into realization, a pleasure that came too fast and then disappeared, like a good sneeze.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It’s done, Liana! He did it! He did it!”…
“……He did what?” I asked…my voice barely there as I crumpled onto the floor, my back against the wall, knees hugged up to my legs, the tears falling from my voice before my eyes could catch up. By now the voice on the other end had sensed the emotion in mine, and had begun to cry. I forced myself to forge my way out of the limbo.
“….Is he president?” I uttered, barely able to get the words out through small sobs now coming into fruition. “….Is he president? Is Barack president?”
It took the voice a moment to answer again, but the sobs ceased for a moment, just enough to reply, “Yes, Liana. He’s the president.”
…And then the tears came, and didn’t stop….
I ran into the office, half-hysterical, wanting to talk to the vice-principal so that he would let me leave immediately. Unfortunately for me, a meeting was taking place and it would not be finished for 15 minutes. The two female staff members in office looked at me, and immediately got me a seat, following their staunch Korean tradition of respecting my right to privacy about the matter of which I seemed so distressed. I was told the vice-principal would not return for a moment, and I said that it was alright. I asked her if I could turn on his television, which sat right behind his desk. She agreed and immediately flipped it on.
“BARACK OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,” I read on the red CNN heading, barely able to differentiate the CG banners from the hail of confetti shooting out of the air in a location I cannot recall. The effect was like a bullet or a shock to the body. My muscles became weak and I hunched over, covering my mouth, and crying out loud sobs into the black skin there. I cried for the great people of my past who wrote speeches and songs foretelling such a day. I cried for the eyes of the old and weary that had cried so many tears over their lifetimes that they barely had anymore to shed. I cried for the suffering that I would never know and the history that I had never experienced, which is carried in the wrinkles of the brows of those generations before us. I cried for the solidarity in that one moment of mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers who shared the burden of their skin and understood the significance of the day, including the man who’s pictures flashed before me on the television screen. And I cried for either the tragedy or the victory of the entire world that could not fathom that moment as it happened, for such things are impossible. I cried because I knew that it wouldn’t be until he was long dead and gone….maybe until I was long dead and gone, that the realization would finally sink in, a tragedy that has defined so many of the great and heroic stories of our past.
….I cried because I knew that I wasn’t wise enough to fathom what was happening.
Even as I sat, trying to gain my composure, answering my cell phone, ringing itself silly, even as my co-teachers began to surround me, patting me on the back and congratulating me, even as they stood staring into the screen trying to understand, as non-Americans, what I couldn’t as a citizen by birth, I began to try to piece together, bit by bit, the call that I could only imagine he had ringing through his own head.
There are many tired and cracked and bleeding feet in this world, and there are many old hands. There are many weary eyes that were once unbelieving and distrusting for the necessity of self-preservation. There were many shiny bald heads and worn voices, and countless more buried beneath our feet, that we trod upon every day, that were glad…are in awe to see this day come. There are broken hopes that, even in death, could have been mended. There are wandering souls that, even in life, begin to find their peace. There are many words unspoken…232…500…10,000 years worth of words floating through the air, praying that today was the day that someone would grasp a hold of them and be able to understand.
I believe everyone believed that today would be that day.
I don’t believe that day will come.
Part of the sweetness is the bitterness from the lack of understanding. Part of the triumph is in the tragedy of the old bodies that are simply glad that their flesh allowed them to creak and stumble into today, not wishing for anything more. Part of the mystery are the “one day”s that have come before that we will never know the true meaning of, and the “what if”s that it is now our burden to carry.
This isn’t about America, and I say that with such love for my country spewing from every part of my being. This isn’t about any one group of people, and it isn’t about any one generation, and it isn’t about the living or the dead only, nor singularly the past, present, or future. It’s some wild and beautiful conglomeration of them all, one that none of us and none of our ancestors would ever be able to put into words, and just a little bit of something eternal which we are blessed enough to have the fortune to barely GLIMPSE, every now and then in this ongoing story of humanity.
We’re not gods and we cannot tell our future, but there is definitely something beautiful about stumbling through the dark, hoping to one day find the light, slowly pacing, placing one foot in front of the other, one step at a time to an ending that none of us can know.
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<3 u Mom: Sep. 3, 1960 -May 1, 2006
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