![]() She was not being ungracious she was just being real. Which is how she surfaced in the national news, describing how she’d been dragged kicking and screaming from her quiet little bungalow on Euclid Avenue and more or less forced to live at the nation’s most famous address. What this meant as we transitioned into the White House was that any time a reporter posed a question to my mom, she would answer it candidly rather than soft-pedalling her thoughts or hewing to any set of talking points generated by nervous communications staffers. This is another thing about my mother: she doesn’t believe in fudging the truth. If someone asks her a question, she responds in plain and direct terms, never catering her answers to suit a particular audience. I’ve seen her talk to the pope and to the postman, approaching them both with the same mild-mannered, unflappable demeanour. ![]() She sees right through it, believing that all people should be treated the same. Glamour and gravitas mean nothing to her. ![]() She operates with a quiet and mirthful grace. This would probably count as the foundational point of my mom’s larger philosophy: “All children are great children.” It’s just that too many of them get overlooked and underestimated. She tries to remind people that neighbourhoods like the South Side of Chicago are packed full of “little Michelles and little Craigs”. We’re just two kids who had enough love and a good amount of luck and happened to do well as a result. She also likes to say that while she loves us dearly, my brother and I are not special, either. By her own measure, my mom is nothing special.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |