The Gentle Rant

We are a deeply divided nation, and that division stems from a profound failure of leadership at the highest level. Rather than uniting the country, the President has repeatedly encouraged hostility and discrimination among its citizens. His administration and its allies appear more focused on stripping away individual rights than on safeguarding them.

Time and again, they pass judgment on whom people love, on those courageous enough to live authentically in the bodies they were meant to have, and on women seeking autonomy over their own bodies. Women’s rights have been systematically eroded, while the hungry, the poor, and the vulnerable—people we once welcomed with compassion—are increasingly pushed aside.

This administration has weaponized religion, using it not as a source of moral guidance but as a justification for exclusion, intolerance, and hate.

The man occupying the presidency is dangerous. His actions and rhetoric have caused lasting harm to our nation and to the dignity of the office itself. This is no longer simply a matter of political disagreement. The presidency has been diminished, its integrity tarnished. Internationally, the respect once afforded to the United States has eroded; we have become a spectacle rather than a standard. The days when America was regarded as a moral and democratic leader feel painfully distant.

I love my country deeply, yet I am ashamed of its current leadership. Laws have been broken, women have been assaulted, and credible allegations of horrific abuse linger unanswered. One must ask: what will it take for the officials we elected to act? And more troubling still—will they act at all?

I no longer feel represented by the President. He has made it clear that those who do not share his political affiliation or beliefs are unworthy of his leadership. In my lifetime, I have never witnessed a nation so fractured, so wounded by its own government.

I long for a time when differences were met with dialogue rather than disdain, when leaders crossed party lines for the common good, and when respect for one another and for the office was paramount. The thought of enduring years more of this instability and cruelty is overwhelming. I am exhausted. And I am afraid.

My father died last week, and with his passing, I officially joined the orphan club. I lost my mother twelve years ago, and surviving that grief nearly broke me. I still struggle with her absence, but I find comfort in my memories of her. She was singular—full of personality, warmth, and quiet beauty. She endured more than any one person should have to, yet somehow still managed to raise six children with strength and integrity. That was her gift to us.

My father’s death feels entirely different.

Our relationship was turbulent and painful. He was a cruel man who lived the life of a thug—a soldier in a known mafia family. When we were young, he provided well. We had everything money could buy. But I know now the cost of that lifestyle far outweighed any comfort it brought. No amount of money is worth what we paid.

He was often a tyrant. Alcohol, drugs, and mental illness formed a volatile mix, one that could turn catastrophic without warning. He wasn’t just loud or threatening—he had both bark and bite. My mother bore the brunt of his violence, physical and verbal, though we children were not spared. He robbed us of hope, of possibility, convincing us we were only capable of surviving, not becoming. He made us feel small, unworthy of dreams beyond the narrow life he imagined for us.

It feels strange to lose a parent and not mourn them. I don’t feel grief so much as release. Outliving him was, quite literally, on my bucket list.

This doesn’t make me cold. I am warm and loving with the people in my life. I lead with kindness, even with strangers. I am deeply grateful every day that I had the mother I did. And now, for the first time, I get to experience life without my father’s shadow.

Not every death brings sorrow, and not every goodbye is painful—but each one invites us to reckon with the truth of the life that came before it.

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