Open letter to my granddaughters--#1

Dear Morgan, Emma, Tegan and Baby Ellie,

Back in October of 1962, when I was fifteen--older than any of you are now or will be for a few years (quite a few in Ellie's case!)--I was riding a school bus to Gary High School when Woodrow Wilson (honest, that was his name!) pulled off the road and got up to read the bus 'evacuation schedule'. A girl named Gwen, two years older than me, went a bit crazy and ran to the front of the bus and tried to push Mr. Wilson out of the way so she could get off. Two Senior boys got her back to her seat and I sat with her the rest of the way to school, patting her arm and telling her it was all okay.

That was called the Cuban Missile Crisis and was the closest our country has come, to my knowledge, to a nuclear war. That day, the Russian ships stopped and turned around and everything was okay.

That morning came back to me this morning--November 9, 2016--54 years later as I tried to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump is the President elect.

I wish I could run to the bus and try to get by Mr. Wilson and run away. I wish I could scream and cry like Gwen did, so long ago. I wish someone would pat my arm and tell me it was all okay.

This morning, when I woke up, it was into a country I don't quite recognize. I've said for over a year that Donald Trump lived in an 'alternate universe'. This morning I woke up into that 'alternate universe'.

I'm writing to you girls so thinking of you can convince me there IS a future worth hoping for while I try to comprehend how I so radically misunderstood the present I was living in until last night. I think best by writing, so I'll be continuing to reach out of my love for you are I figure out how to love a country I no longer quite recognize.

More later, I promise....I promise you and myself....