I will be voting for Senator Ed Markey in the Democratic primary, in part, to honor my late mother and father.
Despite starting their American journey without much money, from the very beginning they believed strongly in the idea of being their brother’s keeper.
My Dad, a Golden Gloves boxing champion in his youth, was a very gentle soul. He was a member in the Third Order of St. Francis and was known for literally giving those less well-off than himself the winter overcoat off his back. To those that some scorned as outcasts, my father lived the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi : “Preach the Gospel and if necessary use words.”
My Mom was a union public school teacher for 20 years — when she wasn’t raising her 10 children! She too believed in the idea of progress. Both of my parents believed in the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and saw the kind of economic and social justice promoted in the Great Depression era Work Projects Administration and Social Security Act as very much in keeping with their version of the American dream.
Ed Markey tells the story of his own mother and how she had to give up her own dreams to care for her siblings after the death of his grandmother. At the end of her life his mother developed Alzheimer’s. Ed’s father and siblings took care of her in the living room of their Malden home. In the same way I took care of my Mom after my Dad died, in her Wakefield home, after she developed cancer.
So, to help assure the survival of this New Deal belief in a gentler American capitalism that takes the needs of the more vulnerable members of our community into consideration and casts no one out in the cold, I will vote for the candidate who understands my family. I’ll vote for Ed Markey on September 1.
