Bye Don

You guys! We have a new president and the first female vice-president who is a person of color too! What a day! Rejoice! Hopefully 2021 will be better than 2020. I feel like I am exhaling after 4 years of tyranny. I remember the day we found out Trump had won, it was two days after my medical malpractice trial and I was really identifying with Hilary Clinton at the time. I couldn’t imagine how disappointed she must have felt but I had some empathy for the grief she must have been going through. It has been four years of grief for me and I am hoping to be through the dark cloud of it.

I really wanted Elizabeth Warren as our President but she sure represented Planned Parenthood today. I know she will continue to make a huge difference in her current role. But man, I cannot wait until we can have a Madame President! I am very grateful for what we have today, however. I know not everyone is celebrating the day as I am, but I hope people can handle their disappointment with grace and not violence and that we can maybe come together in compromise for the next four years.

After they were married my grandfather’s letters were no longer addressed to Eugenia Echerd, instead my grandfather wrote in his loopy cursive, proudly: Mrs. Theodore E. Perkins. I wonder how that must have felt for my grandmother- losing her father’s name- a father she still tears up talking about, sharing the kindness he gave to her, and then taking on a new man’s name. I had always said, before I even knew I was a little queer kid, that I would keep my last name, Perkins. I was such a Daddy’s girl and was so proud of my Perkins heritage that had been orated to me by my Grandfather. I was a blossoming feminist practically out of my mother’s womb and said I would never change my last name. 

I have more to say about this, but you’ll have to read my book...