Motherfucker, You Made My Daughter Cry

Five years ago my youngest daughter was a freshman in high school. One week into a doomed romance her pimple-faced boyfriend kissed another girl.  My daughter was heartbroken. At home that night, after keeping a brave face in the halls at school, she cried her eyes out and we, her family, rallied around her. The next day, in the common courtyard between classes, her brother found the guy. The first words out of his mouth were, and I quote, "Motherfucker, you made my sister cry."  No one got punched but the boy did have to get on his knees and apologize to my daughter, using her full name - which he didn't even know.  My son was called to the principal's office and had to write a letter of apology for bullying.  He was cool with that.  And my daughter? She felt like a rock star for days. Why? For this simple reason: she had been seen, heard, listened to and stood up for in a most remarkable way.  Watching her blossom under that light was beautiful.

Last night she was visiting from Gresham where she now lives. She's 19, working, figuring out life in the city - a long way from the first-boyfriend-freshman she had been. We were catching up, laughing, enjoying sandwiches at the local pub when I casually asked what she thought about everything going on in the world. In an instant her eyes welled up with tears and she started crying. She's bewildered. She grew up in a small community that, while not perfect,  generally demonstrated respect among its citizens regardless of gender, nationality and religion.  She and, I would imagine many others her age - our daughters (and our sons as well) - are worried about what will become of them in a country that allows a pussy-grabber to run for office AND win.  They are watching as wealthy old cronies with outrageously conflicted interests are nominated for positions they have no business holding. They see people reveling in the presumed freedom to be politically incorrect and say horrible things to their fellow humans. They are stunned as a wall is being proposed, actions are taken to register Muslims and the "tired and weary" are refused a crossing to safety. Our daughters are calculating just how terrified they need to be, and their worry is justified. They are crying.

MOTHERFUCKER, YOU MADE MY DAUGHTER CRY.  

I say that directly to you, Donald Trump. And if you would shut your mouth long enough to listen you would hear the voices of women all over the world saying it. And if you listen just a little bit harder you'll hear the ghostly voices of Thomas Jefferson,  John Hancock and their comrades echoing from wherever they are now . . .

MOTHERFUCKER, YOU MADE OUR DAUGHTER CRY.  

But by then it will be too late, Donald.
For we, and our daughters, will have moved on to *the last thing any women ever says before taking action:
"I've had enough of this shit."

*Elizabeth Gilbert's 'The Divine Feminine Is Rising" https://www.facebook.com/GilbertLiz/posts/1259130484169064:0