Counted

Well, this was the ninth Democratic Convention I have watched; the first, in 1976, which I saw spots of because my parents were watching it, was on a black-and-white TV. The last seven I watched in earnest.

There are so many reasons why people care about politics, but in my case it is because my parents did--do, in different ways--and because they raised us to be engaged. From very early on I knew that my mother had marched with Martin Luther King. I knew that as a young girl on a trip to the Deep South to visit her aunt and uncle she had deliberately sipped water from a "Colored" water fountain, enraging her bigoted uncle. Her entire career has been in public education, and she enacted change as a community leader in countless ways. My father's bookshelves were filled with books on politics; because he read them, I did too, and carried a three-inch thick hardcover edition of Ted Sorenson's Kennedy to school in my backpack for a couple of weeks in fourth grade until I had finished it. In his home office hung an enormous poster featuring a photo of Richard Nixon and the words: Would you buy a used car from this man?

My mother's politics were grassroots and personal, my father's rooted in a love of history and a fascination with the process and with government in general. But there was no doubt that they both believed it was important to be aware, be informed, be involved. I remember being taken to the voting booths one November and trembling behind the curtain as I watched the lever pulled. My parents, and all of my relatives, in fact, always voted, on a town, state and national level, and my grandmother, who was born before women had the right to vote granted them by the nineteenth amendment, waits to be picked up now to be driven to the voting booths, as she can no longer drive herself. She can be coy about her candidates, but she is unequivocal on the need to vote for them.

Watching tonight, I remembered something I haven't thought about in a long time: Sitting on my narrow standard issue mattress on my issued bedframe, propped up on pillows, a bag of potato chips by my side, a three-ring binder on my lap, my absentee ballot sitting on top. My roommates were out; I was alone. As I filled in the information, I wept a little. It felt like the most important thing I had ever done. It felt like being a grown-up. The candidate I voted for was the governor of my home state. I was soon to be nineteen.

I walked the ballot to the student post office where I had to Federal Express it in. As usual, I was late. But I wasn't too late. I knew that my ballot would arrive in time to be counted. And I knew that I would never miss an election for the rest of my life.