3 Min read
Polls in Connecticut
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Here in my state of Connecticut, the sun was shining and the polls were open for business. Nana, the name the grandchildren call my mother, was dressed with scarf and sweater this morning when I went to pick her up. It was 55 degrees. She was sitting on the loveseat of my childhood, the same sofa from the front room which we barely used. She was knitting with a soft, blue chenille and had on her black glasses.
I asked her to bring her driver’s license and the glasses. She put on her jacket and hat, then grabbed her gloves. They were short gloves, notched at the wrist with simple, white embroidery. A relic from a bygone era.
“I’ll clean these for you, Mom.”
“No. No, they’re fine,” she said. “Here’s some bao for you; just heated them up.”
I took her to the middle school which turned out to be her old precinct. Then I took her to her precinct at the high school and we walked to the table which listed street names that fell before and after hers, alphabetically. She showed her license and put on different glasses, the pink-rimmed peepers she keeps in her purse.
The poll workers sat patiently, two at a table, in maybe a dozen rows. My mother smelled faintly of onions and garlic, Vietnamese spices.
For the first time, she sat down in one of the few booths with chairs. Behind the large privacy trifold, she filled in the bubbles. Lifting her left hand–bent with knobby knuckles–the sheet jiggled a bit beneath the felt marker in her right hand.
“Mom, hold the ballot with your other hand,” but she didn’t hear me.
She got up and walked towards the exit where she put the ballot into the machine scanner.
“You want a sticker, Mom?” A lean, white-haired man gave her the circular sticker.
She nodded, “Yeah, yeah. Where do I put it?” I pulled off the plastic backing and she stuck it on her sweater.
We left as we came, no wait. On the way out, Nana held the door for a lady pushing her walker, who thanked her and gave her a huge smile.
The doctor is concerned with the amount of weight my mother’s lost. She loves french fries so I asked if she wanted to go get some,
“No. I want to go shopping,” she said. “Not sure where yet.”
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Last night, after a long weekend I had put my head down on the couch arm. Nana had brought dinner over and sat next to me, her hands freezing cold, her bony 89-pound body against my own. It seems relevant to share, dear reader, that my mother was evacuated along with my brother and me from Saigon in 1975, leaving her homeland behind. To say that elections and government are important to her is the understatement of the year.
Nana had babbled on about the cost of shopping items and bills. I hadn’t listened closely, drifting in and out. Then she began to slow down and said:
“I don’t listen to all that anymore. Don’t worry too much.”
I had heard that and smiled. The news can cause her a lot of anxiety, so I have been telling her to tune out and turn it off. She stays informed through Vietnamese feeds and channels. I am not sure if this change is lasting, but I have noticed a positive attitude this week, in spite of elections.
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On the way home from voting, we talked about my daughter’s volleyball schedule. Nana asked about the upcoming matches.
“I’d like to see my granddaughter play, before I die anyway,” she said. Then she asked how long the games lasted.
“A couple hours? I can do that,” she said.
In her 84 years, Nana’s seen the end of a democratic and free South Vietnam, lived through her son’s deployment in the Gulf War, and outlasted the Global War on Terror. Her beloved motherland is one of five communist nations on the planet. Her outlook today helped me zoom out a bit, giving me context on the broad view.
Whatever happens with the election, the sun will come out. And Nana can get french fries, hot and fresh, right from the drive-through.
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