"There will always be the older white woman in Walmart who stared at us with sheer disgust, or the African-American mother who looked at us and just shook her head.”
I stared at her and she held out her arms for me. Me. The scary monster. She wanted me. The same person who frightened her, she was seeking comfort from.
During an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in 1969, when many public swimming pools still were segregated, Rogers invited Francois Clemmons, the show’s black police officer, to soak his feet with him in a kiddie pool on a hot day.
"I know that you question if you’ve done well, and let me tell you something: you’ve done so, so, well. You’ve done better than I could have expected. You have been my best and my favorite surprise."
"It is 10 degrees and freezing cold. I look at his car and see his wife in the front seat covering her face and 2 teenage girls both cuddling under a blanket in the back seat."
The flowers die. The chocolate and meals get devoured. And the surprise getaways happen, and then they’re over. But it’s in the moments that you can depend on (over and over and over again), well, that’s where the love is found.
