The legacy of mothers looms large in the 2024 election.
A soft whisper kept blowing through my head while watching the Democratic National Convention in Chicago for three straight nights.
Women speakers made stunningly moving speeches and paid tribute to their mothers; remembering their hardship, their spirit, their sacrifices, their courage, and most of all their dreams for their children.
I am a brown woman from India who is in Kamala’s generation. I wasn’t born in the US and came here as a student. My mother lived and died in India of cancer, and was the pillar of my life and the rock that held me up.
There is hardly anything common between me and Michelle Obama or Kamala Harris, but my heart clicked and fell in place together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle when I listened to them. The thread of loving our mothers for who they are/were is transcendental. Their words found identical echos in my heart.
Many of our mothers grew up in the shadow of the second world war, and the recession of the 1930s. A Newly independent India particularly was a hard country with little resources, scarce avenues of employment, and terrible food and power shortages. We were a large family in a lovely but rambling old house with my mother’s one hundred budgies, our four cats and a dog. My mother’s ingenious house running skills and endless toils kept us full of nourishing food and care. We surely weren’t rich and surely weren’t poor. But, it was a challenge everyday to make sure My mother’s children got most of what they needed to learn, grow and thrive.
My mother, like the mothers of the women at the DNC, understood the dream. The need for a good education, the need for forward thinking, the need for strong values for her children to get a life better than her own. She told me stories of how at one point, after paying the mortgage, she had only two good silk saris and would decline social invitations, because she didn’t want to be seen in the same saris over and over again. And that was just fine.
Kamala opened her speech talking about her mother, a strong, resilient woman who taught her to dream big. Michelle lovingly talked about her mother who instilled in her values that have carried her through. These women, across continents and vastly different backgrounds, race and culture were the strongest advocates for their children. They were mothers who had dreams and hope. Women with guts and grit and undying courage, and a laser focus on building a good life for their children.
In the 2024 presidential election, mothers born in the first half of the 1900s are sublime influencers. To borrow and tweak parts of Michelle’s speech, that’s something wonderfully magical.
This DNC was full of magical words like – values, joy, hope, courage, decency – all the things our mothers poured into us till their last breath.
If Kamala Harris wins, and I hope she does, it’ll be a win as much for her and America, as for her mother.
If anyone is actually reading this post today, the win is my mother’s.
Photo of Kamala Harris: Courtesy Nathan Posner / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images file
Read Michelle’s Speech
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/watch-michelle-obamas-full-speech-2024-dnc-transcript