Kristen S.

Family. Friends. Cats. Pop Music. And Affordable Access to Quality Healthcare.

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

🥹

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

The Lessons I Learned from My Dad

I am not the man my father is.
I am trying. Some days closer. Some days farther.
He never sat me down and explained these lessons. He lived them. I’m still learning them.

Show up.
The kitchen table. The hospital room. The funeral. The picket line. The call from the son who won’t answer.
Show up.
Most days that’s the whole job.
My whole life I watched him do it. Not for cameras. Not for headlines. Not because there was something in it for him. He showed up because someone needed him.

I learned that grief doesn’t make you special.
My father buried a wife and daughter. He buried a son. Yet he never treated grief as a claim on other people’s sympathy. Instead, it made him notice theirs.
A mother who lost a child. A father sitting beside a hospital bed. A kid scared about what comes next. A son who lost his mother, his sister, his brother.
He always noticed.

I learned that power is not the point.
The people who chase power eventually confuse the office with themselves.
My father never did.
Whether he was a county councilman, a senator, vice president, or president, he was the same man.
The title changed.
He didn’t.

I learned that family comes first.
The train from Wilmington wasn’t symbolism.
It was every night.
He read to us. Showed up to games. Sat through hospital rooms. Waited up for children who were lost.
And when the day came that the country and the family could not both have him at full strength, he chose family. He relinquished the last chapter of how he wanted to be remembered. And he never complained about it.

Most of all, I learned that love is not soft.
Love is discipline.
Love is showing up at one in the morning when nobody is watching.
Love is answering the phone.
Love is staying.
Love is getting back up after life knocks you down and doing it all again tomorrow.
That love saved my life.
I’ve failed at many of these lessons, sometimes in very public ways.
He loved me anyway.

That’s the last lesson.
I am not trying to become my father.
I am trying to carry what he gave me.
And if I can do that, even imperfectly, that will be enough.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@CBSMornings @CBSNews @backstreetboys Oh but Brian doesn’t like it when people touch his personal property 😆

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

😂

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC]

WAKE TF UP

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@CalltoActivism @MelisaGillett And just like that, I’m a Knicks fan! Go Knicks, fuck Trump!

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

Every single time!

[Abby Heugel @AbbyHasIssues]

Please arrive at your appointment 15 minutes early so you can fill out the same forms you filled out online and then be asked the same questions when the doctor actually sees you.

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@HunterBiden Humble and resilient. So much of your dad in you. Rooting for you and your family! 🙏

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@astro_kianna I was born in the year 1982 and lived this truth. You tell ‘em!

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@JimmyTraina I was there, it was amazing! 🤩 (Halloween 2008)

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@theoluminati Power

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@FLOTUS Omg you’re such a loser!

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@___frye 💀

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@Jtsbae69 The universe is healing. 😊

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@lovebeth_xo Agreed. I am just realizing now that I made my peace with it long ago. 😊

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@javaandjordans I must have missed the part where Joey thanked Justin for being responsible for the not one but two songs they have released as a group in recent decades. Like I don’t see him out here creating opportunities for the group. Hmm! 🤔

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@Jtsbae69 I feel like a stalker because I just keep liking all your tweets but you are spot on! 💯

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@jtslovergirl Yes! Thank you for saying this.

[Tim Hannan @TimHannan]

If he’d threaten to murder an entire civilization, you can be pretty sure he raped those kids.

[Roose @RuNoseP]

i do not care if Trump's comments result in nothing tonight. no one who even thinks of saying the phrase "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" should be allowed to operate an ice cream stand, nevermind the most powerful office on the planet

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@Gabbs_Ro *any

[Kristen S. @Demokrissy]

@Gabbs_Ro My group chat friends think I’m nuts. They hadn’t heard about of this. 🤷‍♀️