election day

My father taught me to pray and to vote.  In that order.

"If you don't vote," my father always said, "you've got no business complaining about the outcome."
"And if you don't pray," I would say.
"You'll have lots to complain about," he'd say.

About the only thing politically my father and I could agree on was a person's responsibility to vote.  After that, our views differed widely.  He was a proud Republican; I am a skeptical Democrat.  When I left the ranks of the Republican Party (of which my great-grandfather was a founding member} my father simply said "I'll pray for you."

After that, whenever an election day would roll around, my father would call me and say, "Are you going to vote?"

"I was thinking of it," I'd say.  "You?"

"I was thinking of it," he'd say.

"Of course," I'd say, "we could just both  stay home and call it even."

"I need the exercise," he'd say.  And off we'd both go.

Even though my father has been gone for going on seventeen years, and there is no longer someone's vote for me to cancel out, I still vote.

And, of course, I still pray.  It's what he taught me to do.