I wonder if Sasha will remember that moment when she is grown. Probably not; it seems as if I can retrieve only the barest fragments of memory from when I was five. But I suspect that the happiness she felt on that parachute registers permanently in her; that such moments accumulate and embed themselves in a child’s character, becoming a part of their soul. Sometimes, when I listen to Michelle talk about her father, I hear the echo of such joy in her, the love and respect that Frasier Robinson earned not through fame or spectacular deeds but through small, daily, ordinary acts — a love he earned by being there. And I ask myself whether my daughters will be able to speak of me in that same way.
As it is, the window for making such memories rapidly closes. Already Malia seems to be moving into a different phase; she’s more curious about boys and relationships, more self-conscious about what she wears. She’s always been older than her years, uncannily wise. Once, when she was just six years old and we were taking a walk together along the lake, she asked me out of the blue if our family was rich. I told her that we weren’t really rich, but that we had a lot more than most people. I asked her why she wanted to know.
“Well…I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided I don’t want to be really, really rich. I think I want a simple life.”
Her words were so unexpected that I laughed. She looked up at me and smiled, but her eyes told me she’d meant what she said.
I often think of that conversation. I ask myself what Malia makes of my not-so-simple life. Certainly she notices that other fathers attend her team’s soccer games more often than I do. If this upsets her, she doesn’t let it show, for Malia tends to be protective of other people’s feelings, trying to see the best in every situation. Still, it gives me small comfort to think that my eight-year-old daughter loves me enough to overlook my shortcomings.
I was able to get to one of Malia’s games recently, when session ended early for the week. It was a fine summer afternoon, and the several fields were full of families when I arrived, blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians from all over the city, women sitting on lawn chairs, men practicing kicks with their sons, grandparents helping babies to stand. I spotted Michelle and sat down on the grass beside her, and Sasha came to sit in my lap. Malia was already out on the field, part of a swarm of players surrounding the ball, and although soccer’s not her natural sport — she’s a head taller than some of her friends, and her feet haven’t yet caught up to her height — she plays with an enthusiasm and competitiveness that makes us cheer loudly. At halftime, Malia came over to where we were sitting.
“How you feeling, sport?” I asked her.
“Great!” She took a swig of water. “Daddy, I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Can we get a dog?”
“What does your mother say?”
“She told me to ask you. I think I’m wearing her down.”
I looked at Michelle, who smiled and offered a shrug.
“How about we talk it over after the game?” I said.
“Okay.” Malia took another sip of water and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said.
Before I could answer, she had turned around and started back out onto the field. And for an instant, in the glow of the late afternoon, I thought I saw my older daughter as the woman she would become, as if with each step she were growing taller, her shape filling out, her long legs carrying her into a life of her own.
I squeezed Sasha a little tighter in my lap. Perhaps sensing what I was feeling, Michelle took my hand. And I remembered a quote Michelle had given to a reporter during the campaign, when he’d asked her what it was like being a political wife.
“It’s hard,” Michelle had said. Then, according to the reporter, she had added with a sly smile, “And that’s why Barack is such a grateful man.”
As usual, my wife is right.
Epilogue
M Y SWEARING IN to the U.S. Senate in January 2005 completed a process that had begun the day I announced my candidacy two years earlier — the exchange of a relatively anonymous life for a very public one.
To be sure, many things have remained constant. Our family still makes its home in Chicago. I still go to the same Hyde Park barbershop to get my hair cut, Michelle and I have the same friends over to our house as we did before the election, and our daughters still run through the same playgrounds.
Still, there’s no doubt that the world has changed profoundly for me, in ways that I don’t always care to admit. My words, my actions, my travel plans, and my tax returns all end up in the morning papers or on the nightly news broadcast. My daughters have to endure the interruptions of well-meaning strangers whenever their father takes them to the zoo. Even outside of Chicago, it’s becoming harder to walk unnoticed through airports.
As a rule, I find it difficult to take all this attention very seriously. After all, there are days when I still walk out of the house with a suit jacket that doesn’t match my suit pants. My thoughts are so much less tidy, my days so much less organized than the image of me that now projects itself into the world, that it makes for occasional comic moments. I remember the day before I was sworn in, my staff and I decided we should hold a press conference in our office. At the time, I was ranked ninety-ninth in seniority, and all the reporters were crammed into a tiny transition office in the basement of the Dirksen Office Building, across the hall from the Senate supply store. It was my first day in the building; I had not taken a single vote, had not introduced a single bill — indeed I had not even sat down at my desk when a very earnest reporter raised his hand and asked, “Senator Obama, what is your place in history?”
Even some of the other reporters had to laugh.
Some of the hyperbole can be traced back to my speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston, the point at which I first gained national attention. In fact, the process by which I was selected as the keynote speaker remains something of a mystery to me. I had met John Kerry for the first time after the Illinois primary, when I spoke at his fund-raiser and accompanied him to a campaign event highlighting the importance of job-training programs. A few weeks later, we got word that the Kerry people wanted me to speak at the convention, although it was not yet clear in what capacity. One afternoon, as I drove back from Springfield to Chicago for an evening campaign event, Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill called to deliver the news. After I hung up, I turned to my driver, Mike Signator.
“I guess this is pretty big,” I said.
Mike nodded. “You could say that.”
I had only been to one previous Democratic convention, the 200 °Convention in Los Angeles. I hadn’t planned to attend that convention; I was just coming off my defeat in the Democratic primary for the Illinois First Congressional District seat, and was determined to spend most of the summer catching up on work at the law practice that I’d left unattended during the campaign (a neglect that had left me more or less broke), as well as make up for lost time with a wife and daughter who had seen far too little of me during the previous six months.
At the last minute, though, several friends and supporters who were planning to go insisted that I join them. You need to make national contacts, they told me, for when you run again — and anyway, it will be fun. Although they didn’t say this at the time, I suspect they saw a trip to the convention as a bit of useful therapy for me, on the theory that the best thing to do after getting thrown off a horse is to get back on right away.