Ooh, my bones! Am I really hurting or is it just my memory? My bones always ached; that’s all I remember.

Anyway, no time for that now. We’ve got to get up and get going. We decided we were going to physically be there to see for ourselves. Everybody who had worked till their bones ached was going to rise to be there. It would be easier if we were there just in spirit, but we talked and decided to get up and go. All colors; we understood now what we hadn’t before.

“Come on Maggie, get up now. We can’t just walk through a door and be there; we’ve got a while to fly.” Far and wide they were rising to make the journey to witness the event.

They had not really been invited, but it was thought they had a right. And in mass they were rising to come to see for themselves. Some were going to be honored by being given way to get in front; and some were going to stand back feeling that was more their place, but all were going. As long as they had to work to live, they were going.

Some who were to be in front had already gone and gathered in their room as they slept. As they moved around they could hear their own bones creek and for a minute she rustled as if she heard something too. And she had. As she opened her eyes she felt a presence which frightened her into calmness. They were there, she knew they were there.

She felt a brush on her forehead and then another and another. The calmness of her fear allowed her to realize there was nothing she needed to do; she surrendered to their presence. She sensed old pain, not her own, but the excruciating pain of another covering over her gently as if a warmed blanket being wrapped around her. She began to cry, and her weeping awakened him.

As he opened his eyes he knew something was different. The space around him seemed heavily occupied. As he turned to her he asked what was wrong; she just turned her head hiding her tears. He asked again what was wrong, but as he reached over toward her he came to know they were not alone.

Tears filled in his eyes as he tried to say they had to get up and get ready. The force of their presence made him lie back down and weep with her. Their shear presence evoked an uncontrollable emotion of both sorrow and joy.

They realized the effect they were having and moved away to the corners to provide some relief in the room. Are you ready she said through her tears while hearing him sob? “Let’s just wait a few minutes,” he thought as he tried to get himself together.

At first he wondered who they were, but he had to admit to himself he knew. Then he wondered why they were there, but he had to confess he understood that too. He wondered what he should do and realized there was nothing for him to do as the space around them became even more dense with a heaviness that was fully but not easily explainable.

He went into the bathroom to shower and as he looked at himself in the mirror he became overwhelmed and fell to his knees holding on to the sink. “I will try,” he whispered. “I will,” he repeated. “I will do right by you,” he moaned. “I will try; I will try my very best,” he swore to the universe. He was not grieving; he was overcome with the weight of the burden he was about to agree to bear.

As they got dressed in silence he looked over at her and thought how beautiful she looked, but his mind kept wandering back to them. What did they really want he tried to consider, while in the same instance he knew they wanted nothing but his honest effort to live up to their expectation.

Their expectation was that he would vindicate them, do right by them, simply by doing right.

They came by the millions and lined their pathway, looking and moving out of their way as they approached. He stumbled and they caught him before he could lose his balance. They held him as he steadied and his eyes watered again. Her legs became weak but they held on to her so she would not have to bear too much alone. Yes, they had to know they were not alone.

The past and the present came together as one. Generations long gone surrounded them every step of way. They had risen to witness their kindred and class mate take that solemn oath. They had risen to give them strength to go through with something none of them had ever done before.

They were the captured tossed into the ocean before they got here and the slaves who toiled until dead, working while bound by a system that was unmerciful. These were encouraged to get in front. Then there were the indentured, the indigenous, and the hillbillies, those forced away from the best land. From the north they came too; the whole union army rose up. All the toilers rose because one of them was going to swear to do duty by a land that needed one of them to get it right. Those with the longest journey came from the land across the ocean to the east. They were given way to get close in front as well. They rose to watch and to have their presence felt. They could have come as spirit, but they all chose to raise their weary bones and be present.

All of common kin or class sensed they were there, and the eyes of the living overflowed with tears of recognition in the meeting of the past with the present, inviting in a new future. They stood with them, engulfing them in centuries of hard brutal living and dying. Together, all of them stood with them on January 20, 2009 to take the oath to help change the world.