The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama [167]
“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
MY 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