Voting was very important to my mother.
She voted in every election – local and national – from the time she was eligible to vote. I remember her taking me once to the polls when I was too little to understand why the big room was so full of tall tables with little shields around three sides.
She worked in a public library where among her duties were registering other people to vote. She didn’t wait for patrons to ask—if their records showed they weren’t already registered she always asked and encouraged them to vote, whatever their political inclinations.
Right up to her last day, she told anyone who would listen—family, friends, doctors, nurses—that they must vote, that our votes matter and we shouldn’t throw away our vote out of apathy.
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At long last I found a (feeble? Fabulous?) way to honor my mother.
I’ve mentioned Mom’s desire that I write something about voting before but I’ve had a hell of a time figuring out just what and where. Right after her death, it was just too close, too raw. Then as the months passed, the project was too daunting. What if I got it wrong? What if it wasn’t enough? What if it wasn’t good?
So I spun my wheels. Then a friend pointed me at VoteForward, and there I found a medium that felt right.
VoteForward is a grassroots effort to get out the vote through handwritten letters to registered but inactive Democrats. Handwritten anything is novel enough to get noticed in this world of email and texts. They’re also more intimate (and hopefully effective) than shouting into the void of social media, or winding up in someone’s spam filter or deleted voicemail.
So I’m writing an abbreviated version of what’s at the start of this post (minus the photo) in each of these letters. I can only write about 5 at a time before my handwriting becomes illegible, but if I can crank out 5 a day between now and the October 17 mailing date I’m still going to reach more people than I would be posting to my blog.*
Some might say I’m cynically exploiting my mother’s death, but she would have wanted this. It’s coming from a place of hope and optimism that she had that I often severely lack.
Because yes, I know—the American system of voting is broken. Given the disparity between the popular and Electoral College results in 2016 and the vote-counting debacle of 2000 I think Mom realized this too. But this is the only system of voting we’ve got, and if we want any chance of fixing it we have to keep using it. She would have, and I will continue to.
Mom called this faith that it would all turn out for the best if we just tried hard enough her “inner Pollyanna”. When I was younger it used to make me roll my eyes but with age, I’ve developed my own inner Pollyanna. She’s smaller and weaker than Mom’s but in times like these, I need every little shred of gladness I can get.
So maybe I’m working my hands to carpal tunnel with these letters for no reason. Maybe my writing sucks, maybe every one of these letters will wind up in the garbage. But I think it’s worth the risk. So to honor my mother I’ll keep sharing her dying wish.
*I love y’all and I’d still rather have only 10 readers who “get” me than have to water myself down to attract thousands! But this is the vote. I need reach. I hope you’ll share this, but I hope more that you’ll join VoteForward (or something like it) yourself!