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Lea & Liz: Heading out to vote

January 29th, 2008

i am going to vote after i finish typing this. i am going to vote with
a heavy heart.

my mother is in ICU after a stroke on thursday. she most likely will
not live to see the results of today’s election in florida. yet, i am
making time to leave her side and vote. because it matters. to me and
to her. she would want all of her family to be at her bedside with
those little stickers “i voted”. i remember going with her to vote
when i was still a child and being so excited to be a part of the
process with her.

as of yesterday, i really didn’t know who i was voting for, i had
looked at each angle, evaluated each person the best way that i could,
but there wasn’t one that stuck out to me as “THIS IS IT” until today
(despite the THOUSANDS of phone calls in the past three days, really
people STOP CALLING ME, i am not listening to your recorded phone
spiel).

i am voting for the man most like my father. the man who i think would
stand by his wife’s side and hold her hand while she lay in that
hospital bed. a man who wouldn’t want to cry in front of his children,
but does sometimes. a man who has worked every day of his life to make
this world better for his children and others around him. a business
man who never put making a living ahead of making a life. i hope the
man i vote for is half the man that my father is. this country would
be better off if he was and if he wins the election.

my mother is an excellent american, she is a strong southern gal with
half my size and twice my spirit. she leaves this country of great
freedom for a place that is better. she leaves us for the One Who
truly made her Free. voting to me today is a matter of life and
death… today i tend to the dying and i care for the living. and i
vote because that is part of caring for the living.

-Lea

Entry Filed under: Lea & Liz