A LETTER TO MY HUSBAND ON ELECTION NIGHT

Ned, It's been two years since you woke up in the middle of the night with a pain in your back, and two years since you left us. So you were not with us Tuesday night when we watched the returns, unless you were there after all. I hope so. You would have been so thrilled when the reporter said " We are calling Pennsylvania for Obama" - you knew it meant that the long nightmare was finally over.

Do you remember all the times we stood in Peace vigils and marched up State Street in Santa Barbara in the hope that the Iraqi invasion would not happen? I think our troops might be coming home now, finally, although the damage has been extreme. I don't know whether they got their oil or not. Time will have to tell, but what a price!

And Ned, can you believe that gas was actually four dollars a gallon for a while? And that the administration had to call for billions of dollars to prop up big brokerage houses on Wall Street? That's not over yet. We are in a real meltdown, of global proportion. General Motors is close to bankruptcy- I suppose the Japanese carmakers have triumphed as you feared they might. Things are tough right now and small businesses are hurting, and big ones are as well. It's very like the crisis of 1932.

Still we're optimistic. Obama won, and won big from all parts of the country. Everyone was smiling on election night. We're hoping for better things to come. And we have a lovely new President.

Wish you were here.