An underdog's farewell to Obama

Time and again, we've read that America is about to enter uncharted waters with a Donald Trump presidency. However true that is, and it’s often written or said with a sense of dread, it’s not the first time in recent years that a previously unimaginable political outsider, an alien to many, will enter the White House promising to shake up American society.

As anxiety over Trump builds up, it bears reminding that the election of a certain Barack Obama eight years ago was its own political explosion.

For legions of partisans, of course, the differences between the two are as stark as black and white. Who knows what a Trump presidency will bring, but some idea can already be gleaned from the coarse and unreflective tweets that will soon become the standard pronouncements coming from the office once occupied by Lincoln, JFK, and... Obama.

Obama leaves office in a few hours, but I miss him already. Let the wonks debate the policies, about whether he fully addressed America’s myriad problems, about whether his leadership made the world safer.

What I’m going to miss is Obama the person, and how much of a positive example he has been.

I’ll even miss what many might think are the little things, like the eclectic Spotify playlist of a real person who doesn’t care what others think of his musical tastes; the love for basketball of a lanky six footer with a nifty jump shot; and even the fact that he’s a left-hander like my son (“You may feel odd, but you have something in common with the US president.”).

I’ll miss his careful choice of words, his erudition, the voracious book reading which inspires non-presidents like me to read even more, the perfect referencing of Atticus Finch in his farewell address. I’ll miss that reassuring baritone voice that once broke into healing song in the middle of a eulogy for a murdered pastor.

What I’ll miss most of all is that, in some specific ways, I could see myself in him: we were born in the same year, just weeks apart; he went to college at the same time in a city just over 300 kilometers from mine; he went through an identity crisis in his youth and a crazy period of experimentation, like me, and sorted it out too through journal-writing and reading and spending a lot of time alone. He was honest and transparent about all that, as told through a moving, 20-year-old memoir, “Dreams from My Father.”

Reading his memoir of growing up the confused half-African grandchild of white Kansans reminded me of my own years as the only brown kid in a sea of white faces in the school in Maryland where I spent my elementary years. After my return home, I was the only balikbayan kid in class, teased for his American accent.

So his victory in 2008, and then in 2012, were triumphs too of every kid who grew up an underdog.

Now as Obama gets set to leave, those of us in his generation have an acute awareness of any wear and tear, of signs of carrying the weight of expectation and hope of so many. Barry actually doesn’t look that bad.