You Never Know When Your Legacy Will be Set In Stone

I woke up to the news that Lindsey Graham had died. My first throughout was, “Now the news is mixing up all MAGA politicians. Didn’t they mean Mitch McConnell?” But no, it was Lindsey Graham.

As I read the news about his death the thing that I was most distressed about, and yes, I was distressed about something. The fact that he was only 71 years old, just six years older than me. How could that be?

How could someone who was basically my contemporary. Grew up in almost the same time in history as I did, come to be who he was compared to who I am. Now I grew up in Connecticut and he grew up in South Carolina, but I spent my summers in Pawleys Island and I have plenty of South Carolina Cousins, also close to the same age as Lindsey, and NOTHING like him.

I lived in Washington DC from 1983-1993 just missing Lindsey’s move there in 1995, but I knew the Washington he moved to well. How did he turn into the man who took away LGBTQ rights away, opposing the Supream court’s Decision to allow gay marriage. He voted against protecting people against sexual discrimination in the work place, voted against allowing gay and bisexual people in the military. The human rights campaign recently gave him a score on their congressional score card on LGBTQ equality.

In this day and age, I hope that younger people are fine with letting people be who they feel they are and stop worrying about trying to take away people’s rights.

I have read a few tributes to the Lindsey Graham who was kinder in his pre-Trump era, I am sorry he followed Trump for whatever his reasons. He ran out of time to leave a legacy that might be admired. He might have thought he would have more time to create an admirable legacy, but you never know when you are going to run out of time. No admiration here.