My mother loved a good biography. There was always a tower by her bed of thick tomes with titles like Eleanor, or Queen Elizabeth, or Susan B. Anthony. Mom actually got animated about them, at least whenever I would listen for more than two minutes. My attention span was rather short I suppose. I never asked to borrow one because, well I was a teenager and history had nothing to do with me. Mom knew better.
I just watched Becoming, which is the documentary of Michelle Obama's book tour. My own daughters were clever enough to head to Philly twelve years ago when she was speaking at a high school auditorium, and can tell their own daughters one day that they breathed the same air as the first black First Lady.
I have long loved the image of the reigning couples in West Wing and Madam Secretary. They have different styles... Jed and Abby, Matt and Helen, Elizabeth and Henry. But they all have unshakable mutual respect. They look to one another for influence, shelter from the storm, and a warm hand.
Still they are, it turns out, make believe. Much as I ache for them to step into life and lead this country they are but pictures of what could be.
Michelle and Barack are alive.
It fed my hungry heart to watch the scenes of them offering hope to a sea of colorful faces, singing to a church of grieving congregants, looking into the eyes of Native American children who need to see what a caring leader looks like.
My mother loved those books on her bedside table, and yet her own history was in most respects unremarkable. She married, raised four children, cooked recipes from Betty Crocker, helped in the classroom when she could. The crowd at her funeral was modest, though as she told me near the end she had more friends in heaven than she did on earth.
Maybe she understood that cracking the spine of a biography was not about becoming a queen, or a civil rights activist, or suffragette. Perhaps the reason to learn about the past is more subtle than that, as each of us steps into our own lives more fully.
