Hey Mr. President

Hey, Mr. President, we are fathers and mothers. We are wives and husbands. We are the ordinary people who get up each morning, put on the coffee, and try to hold our families together in a world that too often feels like it’s unraveling.

We pray for simple things. That we’ll dance at our daughters’ weddings. That our sons will grow to be fine men. That we’ll have time enough to see our grandchildren laugh, time enough to teach them how to ride bikes, time enough to pass along recipes written in our mothers’ handwriting. We pray for peace — in our homes, in our towns, in our land.

But sometimes peace feels far away.

I think about this often, especially with Tim. His seizures, his depression, his battles that rage silently even when the room around us looks calm — they remind me that peace isn’t only about nations and leaders and treaties. Peace is also the thing we fight for in our living rooms, our bedrooms, our hearts. It’s the calm after a stormy night. It’s the fragile moment when he lifts his head and says, “I’m still here.”

Mr. President, you hold the power to shape policies that ripple across our lives, but here at home, I hold the hand of someone whose body betrays him. I watch him wrestle with shadows that don’t show up on medical charts. And in those moments, I wish for leadership not just in Washington, but within my own four walls — leadership that looks like patience, like gentleness, like faith that tomorrow can still be better.

We’re all leading in our own ways. Parents leading children. Caregivers leading loved ones through dark valleys. Friends leading each other back from the edge of despair. We do this because we hope, stubbornly and fiercely, that our stories are not finished. That we can still dance at our daughters’ weddings, still see our sons grow into men who know what it means to be tender and strong, still wake up to a world where laughter outweighs sorrow.

I think about the weight carried by families everywhere — some facing illness, some facing poverty, some missing loved ones because of war or violence. And I realize that at the heart of it, our prayers sound the same. “Please let the people I love be safe. Please let there be a future worth walking into. Please let there be peace.”

Hey, Mr. President, maybe these prayers don’t make it to your desk. Maybe they’re drowned out by lobbyists and headlines and the constant noise of politics. But they’re here, steady and quiet, in the kitchens and hospital rooms and churches and playgrounds of America. They are whispered in the night by tired parents, shouted in frustration by those who feel forgotten, and spoken in broken voices by those of us who are just trying to hang on to hope.

Sometimes, I wonder if hope itself is an act of resistance. To keep hoping when the news screams otherwise. To keep praying when the answers don’t come fast enough. To keep showing up for Tim, even when I feel drained and worn. To believe that peace — in the world and in my home — is still possible.

So yes, Mr. President, we are fathers and mothers. We are wives and husbands. We are the heartbeat of this country, fragile but determined. We are the ones who carry stories that don’t make headlines, but that matter all the same.

We pray for peace — not just the kind that makes it into history books, but the kind that shows up in the daily lives of ordinary people. Peace that looks like relief on Tim’s face when a seizure passes. Peace that looks like families gathered around the dinner table without fear. Peace that allows us to dream beyond survival, into joy.

And maybe one day, we’ll dance at those weddings, we’ll hold our grandchildren, we’ll laugh without heaviness. Until then, we keep praying. We keep hoping. We keep leading in the small, unseen ways that matter more than we’ll ever know.

Hey, Mr. President — that’s who we are.