“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some
generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This
generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”-Franklin Delano Roosevelt
These words don’t remind me of the Second World War or the stock market or even Roosevelt himself as much as they remind me of two women. One of them was blood and the other is something like it. Both of them elderly, both of them knowing, both of them bridges.
My grandmother spoke on Roosevelt the way she did about her favorite preachers and I reckon there is a reason for that. She would recall the radio broadcasts in triumphant stereo and glowing tube amp, her head crowned with white hair would dip and rise as she nodded in solemnity-
“That
was a man.”
The other, a neighbor and a community organizer like my grandmother, recollected the president’s inauguration. Her memories were reproduced untarnished and she brought back her freshman year of college in Washington, 1940, watching the fanfare from a rooftop with the other students. Later, they met Eleanor. Her eyes shone as she spoke over a Dr. Pepper. “A fine woman,” she said. “And you know, she wasn’t much to look at. But she had something to her that was wonderful. A remarkable grace.” A dip and a rise.
“A
fine woman.”
I
sit in her armchair and think on the gleaming concrete and glass of the
rooftop, of the passed binoculars, of the youth and beauty of it. She is here
and still there. My grandmother has gone. Both of them that special breed which
will not be born again, which should not be born again. I think this and look at her as she
holds her drink like a scroll, smiles.
9/13/17
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