For a woman who has forsworn complaining, I sure heard a lot of it in the last twenty-four hours.

A woman whom I greatly admire who practices law with enormous dedication and passion lamented the potential reversal of the Missouri Court plan which keeps partisan politics out of big city courtrooms.

A friend who works at a domestic violence shelter told of his staff breaking down at the thought of living in a country led by a president who believes that sexual assault is either acceptable or amusing.

Mothers worried about the lessons conveyed to their daughters about their safety.

Fathers paced around the room talking about their adult sons asking how this could happen in our great nation.

Middle-aged posters on social media blamed the younger generation which dropped out of the campaign when their candidate lost the primary. Twenty-somethings replied they told us this would happen if we picked a candidate with baggage, even a workhorse, even someone qualified..  Native Americans fearful for our climate and their sacred lands raged about a Washington with no social conscience.  African-American children asked their teachers if they would be safe.  Latinos shivered.  Muslim immigrants shrank away from their neighbors.  Everywhere I went, scores of Kansas Citians asked, How could anyone vote for this man, this socio-path, this narcissistic idiotic lecherous predator?

Yet nearly half of the voters filled in a circle by his name.  Despite losing the popular vote, because of our electoral college, he will be our next president.

In the entire day since I crept home from the polls, weary and worried, I only encountered two people who seemed happy that the Republican nominee prevailed.  I heard that a third attended my Rotary meeting this evening, but I did not speak to him.

I’ve listened to everything said by these folks whom I admire.  Their fears for their children, our environment, and anyone with anything different about them.  The disabled, like myself, who watched in horror as this individual mimicked a reporter with a disability.  Rape victims who have a hard enough time coming forward without the overbearing reality of a culture which considers them to be fodder for groping.  My gay neighbors who eagerly ratified their decade-long relationship with a legal marriage last year.

My sister, whose thirty-nine year old daughter sits terrified in her south St. Louis home, unable to understand why we now face a government which will send us reeling back to a time when women were considered second-class citizens and only acceptable if they were pretty or had cleavage the size of Mt St. Helens.

My brother, with five children and one granddaughter who are not “white”.

My stepdaughter, who messaged me at six o’clock this morning, five o’clock her time, to ask, What am I going to tell Gracie?  Her seven-year-old, who still believes in the world’s goodness.

A friend whose kindergartner asked her this morning, How could anyone want that bad man to be our President?

I listened to these complaints.  I reassured each of the speakers.  I told them it would not be that bad.  I told them that the Democrats could take the house in two years.  I told them to write letters, and volunteer, and contribute.  I urged them to see this as a call to arms.  A call to unity among those of us who believe in this social experiment called America.  Those of us who believe that it has always been great.

I smiled all day at the polls yesterday.  I gave out bottles of water.  I calmed down the election judge, made friends with the over-zealous security guard, handed out granola bars that I bought with my own funds, and listened to a librarian talk about her career in chemistry.  After the polls closed, I made a brief appearance at the Cleaver campaign’s gathering, already sure which way the wind blew, not wanting to voice my fear, striving only to see the goodness in the dedication of hundreds to the cause of many more.

But I have ears to hear, and eyes to see.  And I am afraid.

Nonetheless, I will continue to strive towards joy — to learn to face everything that comes to me and at me without complaining.  I feel hopeful that my communion of spirit will eventually become more than the feeble rippling of a single stone.

It’s nighttime on the ninth day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Friends:

As many of you know, I have two blogs.  This blog provides the journal of my quest to live complaint-free.  My weekly blog can be found at: themissourimugwump.blogspot.com.  There, I write my Saturday Musings, accounts of life as I have known it. 

I will soon be launching a third blog, one in which I strive to hold us all accountable for everything that happens in America in the next four years.  

Watch for an announcement of its inaugural entry.

I send my love to each of you.  Be well.