This column was first published here on September 8, 2010.
Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,
in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.
Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,
in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.
~ ~ ~
On Tuesday afternoon, the City Hall press corps saw a mayor ending his larger-than-life political caree
r.
But beyond the stoic front, just past the “There has been no greater privilege or honor than serving as your mayor” lines you’d expect from a departing politician, I saw something different.
I saw a husband. And a wife.
As Richard Michael Daley delivered his remarks for the something-thousandth time from the lectern in the fifth floor press room, he seemed to avoid looking at his wife Maggie, because I suspect he might have shed some tears if he had.
But watch the tape of his five minutes’ worth of remarks, and you’ll sense the connection between a husband and the wife he loves so very dearly.
And Maggie Daley, elegant and beautiful as always---ever the classy Corbett girl no matter her age---stood there in support. Not behind her husband, like most political wives who serve as campaign wallpaper, but at his side. At his right hand, specifically.
And when her husband hit an especially difficult and emotional part of his speech and wavered, there was Maggie’s hand, moving into the corner of the camera shot, holding and comforting his.
It was a tender irony, indeed. Maggie was the only person in the room using a crutch; yet she was the one providing support.
If you’re a man, you probably missed the irony. If you’re a wife and a mother, you saw it, sensed it, and smiled a gentle smile of recognition.
And if you’re a man, you may have missed the significance of the look on Maggie Daley’s face.
But this wife and mother saw it. The look on her face was no garden-variety, Maggie Daley at a ribbon cutting or Gallery 37 smile. This was a full, radiant smile from the soul---the smile of a woman in love with her husband, and nearly bursting with happiness that at long last, she will have her time with her husband, children and grandchildren.
She looked like a woman coming out of the desert after 40 years---make that 38 in her case---and gazing upon cool, clear drinking water.
Not that she ever complained about her role as a political wife. If there is one thing that people agree about in regards to Daley---Maggie, that is---it is that she earned the universal acclaim she has received as Chicago’s First Lady.
But when the mayor leaned toward the microphone and said, “Simply put, it’s time,” I did not hear his voice. I heard Maggie’s.
Rest assured that before he said it publicly, she said it to him countless times in recent years---sometimes a gentle whisper, sometimes perhaps an exasperated exclamation, most times somewhere in between.
If you’re a wife, you know what I mean.
Men. Need I say more?
History will judge Richard M. Daley’s tenure as mayor. That is as it should be. Let the historians do their job.
But hopefully, just for this moment, all of us can put politics aside and simply extend our thoughts, prayers and best wishes to a husband and wife as they hold each other’s hands and walk into the sunset together.
r.But beyond the stoic front, just past the “There has been no greater privilege or honor than serving as your mayor” lines you’d expect from a departing politician, I saw something different.
I saw a husband. And a wife.
As Richard Michael Daley delivered his remarks for the something-thousandth time from the lectern in the fifth floor press room, he seemed to avoid looking at his wife Maggie, because I suspect he might have shed some tears if he had.
But watch the tape of his five minutes’ worth of remarks, and you’ll sense the connection between a husband and the wife he loves so very dearly.
And Maggie Daley, elegant and beautiful as always---ever the classy Corbett girl no matter her age---stood there in support. Not behind her husband, like most political wives who serve as campaign wallpaper, but at his side. At his right hand, specifically.
And when her husband hit an especially difficult and emotional part of his speech and wavered, there was Maggie’s hand, moving into the corner of the camera shot, holding and comforting his.
It was a tender irony, indeed. Maggie was the only person in the room using a crutch; yet she was the one providing support.
If you’re a man, you probably missed the irony. If you’re a wife and a mother, you saw it, sensed it, and smiled a gentle smile of recognition.
And if you’re a man, you may have missed the significance of the look on Maggie Daley’s face.
But this wife and mother saw it. The look on her face was no garden-variety, Maggie Daley at a ribbon cutting or Gallery 37 smile. This was a full, radiant smile from the soul---the smile of a woman in love with her husband, and nearly bursting with happiness that at long last, she will have her time with her husband, children and grandchildren.
She looked like a woman coming out of the desert after 40 years---make that 38 in her case---and gazing upon cool, clear drinking water.
Not that she ever complained about her role as a political wife. If there is one thing that people agree about in regards to Daley---Maggie, that is---it is that she earned the universal acclaim she has received as Chicago’s First Lady.
But when the mayor leaned toward the microphone and said, “Simply put, it’s time,” I did not hear his voice. I heard Maggie’s.
Rest assured that before he said it publicly, she said it to him countless times in recent years---sometimes a gentle whisper, sometimes perhaps an exasperated exclamation, most times somewhere in between.
If you’re a wife, you know what I mean.
Men. Need I say more?
History will judge Richard M. Daley’s tenure as mayor. That is as it should be. Let the historians do their job.
But hopefully, just for this moment, all of us can put politics aside and simply extend our thoughts, prayers and best wishes to a husband and wife as they hold each other’s hands and walk into the sunset together.
# # #
Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.
Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment