Madame President

We were watching the season 4 premiere of The Diplomat, a Netflix political drama / thriller starring Keri Russell as a diplomat thrust into one international crisis after another. It’s fine, nothing spectacular, but entertaining. Slight spoilers follow.

The new episode features Allison Janney taking over the presidency after the death of the president, played by Michael McKean. While it was great seeing C.J. succeed Lenny like that, along with Felicity trying to navigate the new power dynamic created, it suddenly made me realize something that caused some emotional pain:

Adrianna will never get to see a woman elected President of the United States.

This realization may seem like nothing, but it broke me a bit. Adrianna wasn’t exactly political, but she was very empathetic and always on the side of those who might be forgotten, those without power, and in the politics of today that meant she only had a home in one particular political party. She didn’t rant and rave like I did/do, but all of the associated causes and worries and fears and triumphs and goals associated with that political ideology still were forefront for her.

And she was a woman full stop. A strong woman with fragile physical issues, but her determination and will and vision were a force to be reckoned with. We’d discussed the idea that a woman will one day finally be elected president, and the notion excited her, because such ideas and events should transcend politics, much in the manner that electing Obama, for a brief moment at least, helped raise up the entire nation. Even my father, an life-long strong conservative admitted to me after Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 that he felt a twinge of pride that we as a nation had elected a black man.

Of course that was short-lived, but for a moment in time…

Girls and women need such a moment, and I assume (hope?) it will come one day. Not as some token choice of a woman so we can finally mark that off our scorecard, but because she also just happened to be the best candidate. Hilary Clinton in 2016 was clearly that candidate; her gender was just a secondary added bonus for those of us who want to break that last glass ceiling, and I know Adri planned on voting for her.

But she will never live to see this happen. Her lifetime consisted of one where a girl could hope and dream to be president one day, but those hopes and dreams are not 270 electoral votes (though, of course, they can be a plurality of the popular vote.) I was crushed to realize that I live in a country that could not muster the support for the two women who ran against the current president, but could when a man ran against him. I hope that’s a coincidence.

And if I was crushed, I imagine the utter disappointment and despair felt by a large portion of the US women must have been of magnitudes greater.

Including Adrianna.

Moreover, this sudden realization during the viewing of a Netflix series was just a harsh reminder of all the things that Adri will miss and never see. There are little things, like never getting to ride in the new car we just got; consequential things, like seeing a woman elected president of this nation; and, of course, all-encompassing huge things, like seeing her sons graduate, get married, have children, and just make their places in life.

Me breaking down in tears because she won’t see a female president might have seemed a bit over-sensitive on my part, but it was just a harsh reminder of both where we are as a country and all the things she will miss because of a life cut short.

It just broke me a bit. Part fifty-six.