I cry. The crayon weeps.

This is only a portion of Barack Obama's beautifully managed and moving half-hour primetime spot. Here, with the telling of this couple's story, is where I began to weep, which I continued to do steadily for the rest of the program (after which I called my mother). I am a known hysteric, but more than my usual brand of emotionality was afoot. In the past few weeks something extraordinary has happened; when I see and hear Senator Obama (alone and with his family), I think of my family. I think of my father, who was also forty-seven when he took a new job (of a challenging sort he had never had before) and moved our family to another city. Incidentally, my sister and I were the same ages then as the Obama girls are now. I think of my mother who has wanted nothing more than to love and educate us well, and who now faces the tumults of a drifting economy everyday. I think of how much I hope that my parents know my children, as Senator Obama's mother was unable to. I have never felt this personally connected to a stranger before, let alone a politician. It took me most of this race to get it, but now I do--Barack Obama is a figure of hope, of a revolutionary substance not seen very often.