Writing our ‘unfinished’ story
I was expecting a sense of relief to wash over me during the course of the morning Wednesday. Maybe it would happen when my 6-year-old daughter asked me what time the new president would arrive, or when the women working at the liquor store would tell me they were almost sold out of champagne because so many people had purchased a bottle in anticipation of celebrating the inauguration.
But it didn’t come.
What was holding me back? In an odd display complete with a fascinating soundtrack selection, the Trump family had bid adieu to a group of supporters and flown off for the last time on Air Force One.
It was over — wasn’t it? I was desperate to rejoice in the moment, especially one in which I had just witnessed the first woman to be sworn in as vice president, but my hesitation got the better of me.
It wasn’t until the finale of the event that it hit me. Poet laureate Amanda Gorman’s words delivered the message I needed to hear: “We are a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.”
We are unfinished.
Even while so many of us
have been counting down the days until the “end” of one administration, we
couldn’t mistake that to signify the end of our fight.
Nothing was over; in fact,
it was just the opposite.
President Biden had echoed a similar sentiment when he spoke about the American story; how the “story depends on all of us.”
All today signifies is the end of a chapter. And every end is followed by something even more important — a beginning.
The story is there, begging to be written. We have seen what can happen when we give the pen to those emboldened to fill the pages with acts of hate, prejudice, greed, and divisiveness. We will not let that happen again. That is the one thing which we must work every day to ensure has seen its final hour. Fair access and avenues to health care, education, housing, quality of life, and the right to life itself will be written in this next chapter. They have to be. For too long we have seen the devastation caused by only penciling notes about change haphazardly in the margins.
Our nation cannot spend forever being unfinished.
So let’s finish it.