A few days after my husband firefighter Dave Fontana died on 9-11, there was a peace march in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Thousands of neighbors showed up for a candlelight vigil and we walked in sad silence to Dave’s Firehouse.

I remember the grief and shock I felt about losing Dave but I also remember this other feeling….
this profound sense that something bigger was happening, beyond this city, beyond this country, beyond my own personal loss.  It felt as if the fault lines of humanity were shifting and the whole world was uniting for the first time.

I had hope.

Then came the long reign of Bush where he not only squandered that historic moment,
but used 9-11 to go to war, alienate other countries,  induce fear and to get re-elected.

I lost hope.

My friends and family lost hope too. A  gloom descended upon everyone I knew. We shook our heads while the war lingered on, global warming got worse,  money was squandered and power abused.

Last night, I watched the election results with some good friends in Brooklyn, many of whom surrounded me with support after Dave died.

We popped champagne when the electoral count reached 207, but then worried that we
had celebrated too soon. Everyone was cautious. Careful. We had lost hope after all.

But then we heard celebratory screams outside as if it were New Years Eve.

People took to the streets banging pans, shouting "OBAMA" and screaming at the tops of their lungs.

There were fireworks and I high-fived strangers in the street and  I couldn’t stop crying.

A little later, I stopped by another friend in the neighborhood who wanted to exchange hugs.  Like so many of my friends, she had just returned from Pennsylvania where she had worked phones and knocked on doors.

Her husband had set up a giant screen to watch the election results.

Obama  stepped on stage to make his incredible, historic speech that I know our kids will be reading about in school some day.

His message was so powerful, I couldn’t help noting the difference between him and our current president.

Obama  was eloquent, powerful and humble, a symbol of so much to so many who had waited patiently to see this day.

Best of all, for the first time since the night of the vigil so many years ago, I felt hope return again.

OBAMA !!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!!

Marian Fontana has been a writer and performer for the past 20 years. Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Elle, Parenting, and Martha Stewart. Her most recent book, A Widow’s Walk: A Memoir of 9/11 was on the New York Times’ best selling memoir list and was chosen as one of the Top Ten Great Reads of 2005 by People Magazine and the Washington Post’s Book Raves of 2005.

Photograph of the election night party Marian attended by Tom Martinez.

       

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