Wrestling With Patriotism
The internal struggle
When my daughter was in the fifth grade, she created a papier-mâché model of the Statue of Liberty. As you can see in the photo, Cait’s Lady Liberty is seated and leaning to her right, barely able to hold her torch.
When she brought her masterpiece home from school and placed it in my hands, I swooned. Look what my girl did.
Just one question, though. “Why is Lady Liberty sitting down?”
Cait stared at her for a moment before answering. “She’s tired.”
This was in 1998, the year President Bill Clinton was impeached, launching countless parental conversations with young children about language we don’t use in this house. Of course, Lady Liberty was exhausted.
She has held a place of honor in our home ever since, greeting us whenever we walk through the front door. She is housed in a metal cage designed to hold a big candle, seated behind a hinged glass door. I chose it to keep her safe from harm. Some people around here have had their opinions about this.
“She looks like she’s in prison,” grandson Clayton said, at age seven. This was in the summer of 2016, when I thought we were four months away from electing the first woman to be president of the United States. I’m sure I said something about that to Clayton. Endlessly, perhaps.
(Quick book recommendation: After reading Nick Cave’s Faith, Hope and Carnage this year, I now see that by December 2016 I had pivoted to embrace Cave’s definition of hope: optimism with a broken heart. Thank you to my friend Regina Brett for knowing I would love his book.)
Yesterday, I was with about 180 people in a backyard in Cleveland Heights when news broke of Donald Trump’s felony conviction, on 34 counts. Lots of cheers, briefly. Soon, we were sharing worries about what comes next. My first prayer last night was for the jurors, whose sacrifice as public servants has just begun.
When I walked through our front door last night, I stopped to say hello to Lady Liberty. I can’t say it’s because of Trump. Sometimes, I just do that, and in reflective moments I still say, “Look what my girl did.” She could have made anything in art class when she was 11 years old. She chose to create her version of America.
Early this morning, Cait texted a photo of her young son Milo. The moment I saw it, I knew I had to change today’s schedule to write this essay before leaving the house. Milo is eight, and during a neighborhood “chalk the block” event he created his own version of America. He hadn’t heard anything about Trump. He just wanted to draw a large American flag, flapping in the wind against a cloudy blue sky.
“There are three kinds of patriots,” wrote the Rev. William Sloane Coffin. “Two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s lover’s quarrel with all the world.”
Whenever I share this quote from Coffin, some fellow liberals object to my including his reference to God. It’s what the man said, and he was a minister. As a woman of faith, I draw comfort from his depiction of a God who has a lot of opinions about how we’re handling things.
We are a family of patriots, raising our next generation to love this country enough to work hard to make it better. Most of our grandchildren are too young to own this responsibility, but kids have a way of absorbing messages, good and bad, long before they can unravel the impact on their lives.
In Milo’s house, a framed, handwritten note from President Barack Obama hangs by the front door. Milo and his little sister, Ela, pass by it every time they walk out of their bedrooms and down the stairs.
This note was written to Milo’s father, Alejandro. He was 13 when he and his family fled El Salvador for America. They did this legally, I add, only to avoid attacks on this man we love and admire.
In 2014, Alejandro married Cait. She was pregnant with Milo when Alejandro became a U.S. citizen the following year. The ceremony is one of our favorite family memories. Sherrod and I blubbered through much of it, and for weeks after we bragged about Alejandro to everyone we knew.
One of those people was President Obama. Sherrod and several other U.S. senators had been meeting with him in the Oval Office, and as everyone was leaving, the president asked Sherrod to stay behind. As usual, he asked how our family was doing, and Sherrod shared our good news about Alejandro.
President Obama smiled and said, “Would he like a note?”
Some answers sure come fast.
President Obama’s letter:
Alejandro—
We are so proud to be able to call you a fellow citizen. Our country is stronger because of you!
Eight years later, Alejandro’s son sat on the pavement and drew his version of America.
Milo told his mother it was the easiest choice.
Smiles and tears. What a lovely post. This is how things are supposed to be.
Day day Trump got elected I got to school early and cut out a huge picture of the Statue of Liberty and taped it to my classroom door, along with the poem. Then I spent the day hugging my terrified students, all newcomers to America.
I really hope I don't have to repeat that day this November.