Since I was a teenager, I thought I wanted one simple phrase as my epitaph: “Bold, Brave and Undaunted.”
It’s a recurring line in my family’s anthem, an Irish song called Brennan on the Moor that tells the tale of a beloved outlaw, Willie Brennan. Willie “commenced his wild career” in the early 19th century, supposedly dedicating himself to protecting the poor from the horrors they suffered at the hands of the well-to-do. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem recorded the song in the early 1960s, and its thundering guitar intro never fails to get me dancing in March.
This March, of course, is different: no toasting in bars, no parades, no communal celebration of St. Patrick’s Day marking the coming of spring in wintry Central New York. Instead, we huddle at home, finding projects to keep us busy, connecting electronically with loved ones and watching the best of Netflix.
Maybe we watch the news, where we see the story of a disaster Willie Brennan never imagined. A virus erupts from a market and blankets the globe, isolating us from one another as we ask questions that have no answers.
And if we watch the news we see him: the sneering, lying narcissist who, courtesy of the Electoral College and continuous boot-licking of the Republican party, is supposed to lead this country’s response. The one who disassembled the country’s pandemic response team. The one who ignored warnings about the seriousness of this threat. The one who called it a hoax until he suddenly told us he knew all along it was a pandemic.
It takes me back to Election Day 2016, when I backed into a corner of the couch with a blanket pulled up over my cheekbones, trying to hide from what I thought could never happen. Enough people in this country had chosen to ignore his grifting and greed, his financial failures, his mocking of the disabled and his vile comments about women. This was a person they thought worthy to honor with the highest office we can offer.
I lost faith that night, feeling utterly disconnected from Americans who could observe the behavior of this petty, dishonest buffoon and think he deserved anything other than to be kicked to the curb. Since then, I’ve donated to candidates of my choice, protested at rallies and marches, and repeatedly shared my worries with my representative in Congress, but I continued to fear that this country was lost on Nov. 8, 2016.
I hope I was wrong. There’s a lot I don’t know in the face of this disastrous pandemic. But one thing’s for certain. I’ve changed the plan for my epitaph. Instead of “Bold, Brave and Undaunted,” let it read: SHE DIDN’T VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP.
March 22, 2020
Dunn Now 