Jewel

Following is an eloquent story as told by one of my dear Artist's Way friends. He is a professional IT person for the local corporate hq of a national grocery chain, a former professional game designer, a guy who fits in well no matter how many women are in the room, and just an all-round heck of a nice guy. He wrote this as an email and I quickly wrote back and asked permission to post it on my blog. Of course he graciously agreed.

Enjoy.

T and I have done some volunteering for the Obama campaign and I just wanted to share a true experience we had (but I’ve changed the woman’s name)…

Tuesday night an elderly woman (who we’ll call Jewel) told one of the phone bank workers at the Democratic Headquarters in our town that she wanted to vote but she was in a wheel chair and needed a ride to the voting station on Wednesday morning. The staffer asked if anyone in the room could drive the woman and I generously volunteered fully knowing that I would pawn the job off on T because she didn’t go into work until 11 on Wednesday.

Wednesday came and I ended up deciding to go along with T and the woman because, as it turned out, I was staying home anyway to meet a plumber at my house at 10:00 AM and I figured we’d be back by then. After a short drive we pulled up in front of an off-white public housing duplex that had a wheelchair ramp. T went up to the door, knocked and went inside. A few minutes later T came back out to the car and told me there were two women living there who wanted to vote, both of the women were in wheel chairs and they would only go if they could bring their caregiver with them. Since our car only seated four T told the women she would be right back. Five minutes later T had dropped me off at McDonald’s. I spent the next 45 minutes enjoying a relaxing breakfast, reading USA Today, and reveling in my “me” time.

When T came back her eyes were full of tears and I thought, omg what did I get her into, but she quickly told me they were good tears. It turned out that Jewel, who I never saw, was 80-years-old and frail as tissue paper. She rode up front with T while the other woman and the caregiver rode in the backseat. On the drive over Jewel told T that she grew up during the depression in pre-civil rights era South Carolina. She had never voted before in her life and sadly said this “vote was too late to do me any good, but it might help my children or my grandchildren." It was clear to T that the act of voting was frightening for Jewel.

When they arrived at the voting station T parked in the curb-side voting station and a worker came out, verified the women were on the eligible voters list and gave them ballots. The Jewel’s hands shook so badly that it took almost 10 minutes for her to fill it out and blacken the bubbles sufficiently. The worker collected the ballots and T started up the car, backed out and headed back to the woman’s house.

Now for the good part – Jewel was wrong – this vote did help her! The entire ride back she was excited and animated. She had faced down her fear of voting and cast a ballot for the person of her choice for the first time in her life. She was literally giddy with personal power and she thanked Tracey repeatedly for helping her. T in turn thanked Jewel for allowing her to participate in this important event. As T was retelling this to me she teared up again as she remembered Jewel’s triumph and gratitude.