Dear Senator Obama

                                                                                    November 3, 2008

 

Dear Senator Obama,

I have wanted to write this letter for quite some time, and it seems now is finally that time.

I was deeply saddened by your Grandmother’s death today and want you to know that my thoughts are with you and your family.  My husband and I try to think of her as letting you know that she didn’t need you to be president. She needed you to be simply who you are.

Of course I did not know her, but her struggle with health is familiar to me.  I am thirty-seven (as of Nov. 1) and the mother of three children (1, 3, 4).  I was diagnosed in January with stage IV colorectal cancer that had spread to my lymph nodes and liver.  My luck is that my cancer is still considered curable.

We were early supporters of you. In fact my husband’s great aunt Marilyn Tank (former head of the Women’s National Democratic Club) and I discussed at great length your speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. She was almost ninety years old at the time, elegant and wise. She told me to watch you… You would one day be President if we were lucky.

She passed away before the primaries even began, but watch you we did. My husband had a chance to “meet” you at a fundraiser in San Francisco early in the primaries. I was stuck home with our newborn, breastfeeding, but I enjoyed hearing how impressed he was by the way you explained the process by which you reached your positions, rather than just reciting conclusions.  We both sensed that you have an instinctive belief in other people’s sense of fairness, their ability to appreciate justice and weigh competing claims in the balance.

What I would like to tell you is that, due to timing and my eternal optimism, your message of hope resounded with my husband and me on many levels.  Hope. We hope that I will be cured. We hope to beat the statistics and live. We hope that my genetic FAP (Familial Polyposis) will not be passed onto our children.  I say “we” because my family is going through this as much as I am.

We also hope that our children will be insured if any of this medical hell falls upon them. My insurance is capped at $75,000. Three pills of only one of my prescriptions (and I have many) cost $435. Chemotherapy is $17,000 per session, and I have had 12 cycles. The liver surgery alone was $100,000. My husband has negotiated with the hospitals (that J.D. did come in handy after all!) to lower costs now that my insurance is capped… But what about those who don’t have the energy or knowledge or time to harass the hospitals and doctors?

As we close in on election day, I am with you. My chemotherapy ended last Wednesday and by tomorrow, election day, I will be strong again. I will call more swing state voters. I will do whatever the headquarters wants me to do.

In fact, I have, in the past done many non-profit fundraisers and special events. I am happy to put these talents to use for you whenever you need them in California. Put me to use. I wish that I could have more than our one fundraiser for you, but I have done as much as I can in my current circumstances. I must allow that to be enough.

In closing: I grew up mostly in South Carolina (after initial years in Australia) and have always felt an outsider for my worldview. With your potential presidency, I have seen a shift in mood there. My mother (former head of the South Carolina Republicans' club who attended Inaugural balls of both Bush father and son) had my husband sign an absentee ballot as her witness. The vote was cast for you. My great aunt whose grandson has a confederate flag in his bedroom (she also raised her grandchildren) is considering a vote for you… Just that she is considering means “Times they are a-changin” (Bob Dylan was my favorite endorsement of you)!

Good luck tomorrow. We’ll be working for you here…and yes, hoping.

Thank you.

Renée Cole Clyde         

Comments

[amy]

Beautiful.

[justine]

Happy (belated) Birthday to you!

[medical marijuana doctor]

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