Next

Photo by Katie Mulhall

Hello, everyone.

To state the obvious, it has taken nearly two weeks for me to write anything more than a few lines since Election Day. As public as our marriage may seem, it thrives because of who we are in private. We needed time to absorb the impact, and to be here for our family.

I have been riding quite the wave of emotions. Whenever that happens, I tend not to share all my feelings on speaker phone. I have seldom felt comfortable being the hot-take columnist even when the news had nothing to do with my family. I had to sit with this headline for a while. I’m also aware of a friend’s recent words of advice. If you are lucky enough to have a following, no matter the size, you have a responsibility to try harder. This small sign, a recent purchase on Etsy, now sits on my desk.

Will you bear with me if I start with a story that has nothing to do with Election Night? If I tell it right, perhaps you’ll see why.

In October 2003, about a month before Sherrod asked me to marry him, a local weekly published a gossip column speculating about our “hot love affair.” It was written by an anonymous someone called The Nose, and a copy of it was sitting on my keyboard when I arrived at my desk in the Plain Dealer newsroom.

As you can see in the photo of this column, below, readers were supposed to believe the author was either a time-traveling robber baron from the 1900s or a baritone in a barber shop quartette. A thick, wavy mustache crawled beneath his large, ruddy snout, which was topped with a pair of metal reading glasses.

His column began with this bold-faced headline: “Bleeding Heart Liberal Columnist Falls in Love with Bleeding Heart Liberal Congressman – not that there’s anything wrong with that….”

“The Nose’s heart is fluttering after reading the steamy Cleveland Magazine exclusive on the hot love affair between Congressman Sherrod Brown and Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz….

Oh, brother.

If New York, California, and Washington could have their “powerful political-media couples,” The Nose wrote, why not Cleveland?

“The Nose wonders at the intensity of pillow talk between the love birds about what Ohio’s largest daily is doing—or not doing—and is [the publisher] really that big of a snake? (Answer: Yes!) But just what do they pillow talk about, The Nose noses in?....”

The accompanying photo depicted Sherrod with a lipstick-kiss plastered on his cheek.

Oh, God.

This seems so tame now, but in 2003 it was the last thing The Plain Dealer editors wanted to see written about their columnist. Sherrod and I had been dating for 10 months, and for all of them we had been on the receiving end of constant public speculation and rumors.

At the advice of colleagues and friends, I had agreed to the Cleveland Magazine profile in the hope that it would put it all to rest. This was hilariously naïve of all of us. What a disaster. What I didn’t realize then, but would soon learn, is that our marriage would be a public one, always. Never have I been more aware of this than now, in these first days after Sherrod lost re-election to the U.S. Senate.

Oof.

That’s the first time I’ve typed that.

Deep breath.

I hadn’t thought about that gossip column for years, but I found the clip last week as I searched for our marriage license. As public as our life together has been, we must provide proof that we are married to complete the paperwork required of a departing member of Congress. We laughed about this yesterday. We’re doing that a lot more lately, and for that I’m grateful.

Many have asked how we’re doing. I have a clearer answer today than I did on November 6.

On election night, we had reserved a large hotel suite in Columbus to accommodate family, friends, and staff. We were nervous, as the race had been tight for weeks, but we were hoping for a celebration.   

About three hours after the polls had closed, our most trusted advisers asked to meet with us in our bedroom. We knew by their faces that they were about to confirm what Sherrod had already started noticing in the numbers. Our path to victory was narrowing.

Soon, it would disappear.

I will always cherish those five people for having the guts to tell us early. Sherrod and I had a few minutes alone to hold hands, look each other in the eyes and breathe it in. That was enough. Seven young grandchildren and their parents were waiting outside our door. We knew we had to be strong for them, and for hundreds of campaign staffers and supporters waiting for us in the ballroom.

In moments of uncertainty, I used to tell my young children to act brave and the courage will come. Decades later, that is how we found our strength on Election Night. It sounds so basic, but it works. It helped that we had each other, and that our children and their spouses flocked around us. This would be one of the most public moments of our marriage. We wanted to conduct ourselves with dignity. We owed that to everyone who loved us, and to all the people who had supported Sherrod.  

Together, we wrote most of his speech. It was brief and began with these words:

We may be tempted to say hope was not enough.

We might be tempted to second guess ourselves, and question whether we worked hard enough or long enough.

That is not our story tonight.

We believe that all work has dignity,

We always will.

We believe in the power of people over corporate special interests.

We always will.

We believe if you love this country you fight for the people who make it work.

And we always will.

This is a disappointment, but it is not a failure. It will never be wrong to fight for organized labor, the freedom of women to make their own healthcare decisions, civil rights, and human rights. . . .

Three days later, we were getting dressed for a dinner with all the campaign staff. We knew we’d be entering a room full of brave souls, most of them decades younger than we are and trying hard to hide their broken hearts.

At our age—I’m 67 and Sherrod just turned 72—we’ve had plenty of opportunities to be felled by disappointment. We’ve also known the exhilaration that comes when you stand back up, brush yourself off and dare to try again. We planned to share some of those stories with the team.

This is one story I didn’t share, but for some reason it was on my mind. When Sherrod and I applied for our marriage license in early 2004, we were required to provide our divorce decrees, one each. That had hit me, how we had to prove our failures before we were allowed to try again.

Over the years, we’ve talked a lot about the miracle of our second chance. It’s the narrative of how we found each other after combined decades of single parenthood, and it is also the foundation of our commitment to public service. We are unsure what’s coming next, but we are not giving up. We know from experience that an open heart is the only way to move forward. Once again, we are welcoming the winds of change.

Right now, Sherrod and his senior managers are working hard to find jobs for every staff member about to lose theirs. I love Sherrod for many reasons, but top of the list this week is his concern for these remarkable public servants. We are really going to miss them, but we look forward to seeing what they do next.

Before I go, I want to share the story about that photo at the top of this column. Katie Mulhall, Sherrod’s Senate speechwriter, captured this moment on Election Night. We had just left the stage and were headed to a giant conference room with more than a hundred campaign staff and volunteers.

Katie said she had hesitated to send the picture to us, but I’m so glad she finally did. We are holding hands, walking fast and full of purpose. As soon as I saw her text, I held up the photo to Sherrod and said, “Hey, this is us, still.”

Then I snapped a picture of his smile.