This week we head into the two darkest months of the year: short days, long nights, with cold returning. Sometimes I think we celebrate holidays just to keep the dark at bay.
It took me awhile to check my birthday calendar this month. I feel for people who were born this time of year, when it takes extra energy just to leave the house much less shop for gifts. But when I did stop to look at it, there on the 18th was Joe Biden’s name wedged between family and friends. I felt moved to let him hear from me now, if for no other reason than to wish him a happy birthday.
When I told my mom about the idea, she practically exploded with enthusiasm and asked me to sign her name to the card. As with all writing, putting my thoughts into words benefited me probably more that it will him. Maybe it will help some of you. Here’s the letter I sent tucked inside the card:
Dear Joe,
The nicest, most wonderful thing a President has ever said to me is “I need you.” It made me cry. I don’t know how much help I’ve been, but I’ve tried to serve us from my little town, Lindsay—once the Olive Capitol of the World (you remember, “a nice town, a great olive”)—here in the red heart of a blue state.
My mother, who is 98 and gaining, and I want to thank you for giving us four years’ reprieve from insanity. We got to heal up our wounded belief in this country, which will help us survive and perhaps resist, even challenge the insanity to come. You could not have served at a more important time.
I love your perfect blend of courage and humility. That’s what I saw when you went to Ukraine, and wrote about it in my column Notes from Home (“Shock Waves” 3-1-23, enclosed.) It’s also what I heard in the debate that the media folks so disparaged. Decency has no recourse in the face of the ill wind that is Donald Trump, not even if you hadn’t been sick. I admired you and also wept for the pummeling you received…
I was wrong to say that decency has no recourse: it’s the only recourse, and I can see that this time, in part because you are modeling it now. I just hadn’t identified decency as a blend of courage and humility until I thought of what I’ve appreciated seeing in your four years of leadership. That’s what it’s going to take…
Thank you for doing whatever you can now to protect Ukraine. My heart bleeds when I think of them, as it does for the Palestinians, whose slaughter is not your fault, but Netanyahu’s. The uprising of tyrants around the globe is a plague. It looks like we have to learn again the real meanings of freedom.
So Happy Birthday, Joe. We are glad you SURVIVED this! and grateful for the gift of your service. Our prayers are with you over the next two months, and hopes for blessings beyond belief once you step free of this work.
In deep gratitude, and with love, Trudy and Leah Rose Wischemann
On Thursday, Nov. 14, the day I wrote the letter, the reading in my daily meditations book was profoundly comforting. I’ll share that with you now, too, because reading it probably got me to write the letter.
Darkness
O darkness
As potent as a curse,
As fragile as a candle flame,
As threatening as a foe,
As comforting as a friend;
You are the womb for all qualities:
Come, endow us with your fecundity,
Enrich us with your every paradox.—from Richard Skinner’s “Invocations: Calling on the God in All,” 2005
Let us lean into Thanksgiving, and press on.
Trudy Wischemann is an April baby who writes. You can send her your thoughts on darkness c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247. This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of the Mid Valley Times newspaper.
