My Aching Heart

I am not angry today. I am sad. To the core of my being, I feel nothing but abject, numbing sorrow.
Anger will have to wait until I can free myself from the paralysis of this sadness I feel.
One thing I did this election, besides contributing money, displaying signs and stickers and Blogging my heart out for Kerry, was to reach out to my next door neighbor kids.
Jason and Jesse are in their 20's, but they still live with their parents in a sheltered, Jehovah's Witness household.
Their parents are sweet people, but their religion prohibits political involvement, so they stay out of it. Their kids had been apolitical as well, until recently.
Over the summer, I took every opportunity to talk to the boys about the importance of this election.
Yesterday, they proudly told me they voted in their first-ever election. For Kerry.
Today, Jesse came by to say he was baking me some cookies as a conciliation gesture- and as a thank you, for taking the time to get him involved, interested and excited about politics.
He was so disappointed his first vote didn't turn out as he'd hoped- but then I reminded him that he, his brother and I had essentially canceled out Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's votes.
It was a sweet and heartfelt exchange that took some of the chill from my frozen heart.
While I am indulging myself in this wash of disappointment and sorrow, I find solace in remembering this:
Before Nixon started running for his second term, Watergate was discovered.
He was reelected in spite of what seemed to many of us a smoking gun of epic proportions.
It took two years into his second term to nail him, but he was nailed, and so was his criminal Vice President Spiro Agnew, for income tax evasion.
They left office in disgrace.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Let's all hope that adage remains true. Justice, like revenge, can be a dish best served cold.
But let's forget revenge- let's all just pray for justice.