Democratic
National
Convention
Michelle
Obama’s speech at
the DNC
Thank
you so much,
Elaine…we are so grateful for your family’s service and sacrifice…and
we will
always have your back.
Over
the past few years as
First Lady, I have had the extraordinary privilege of traveling all
across this
country.
And
everywhere I’ve gone,
in the people I’ve met, and the stories I’ve heard, I have seen the
very best
of the American spirit.
I
have seen it in the
incredible kindness and warmth that people have shown me and my family,
especially our girls.
I’ve
seen it in teachers in
a near-bankrupt school district who vowed to keep teaching without pay.
I’ve
seen it in people who
become heroes at a moment’s notice, diving into harm’s way to save
others…flying across the country to put out a fire…driving for hours to
bail
out a flooded town.
And
I’ve seen it in our men
and women in uniform and our proud military families…in wounded
warriors who
tell me they’re not just going to walk again, they’re going to run, and
they’re
going to run marathons…in the young man blinded by a bomb in
Afghanistan who
said, simply, “…I’d give my eyes 100 times again to have the chance to
do what
I have done and what I can still do.”
Every
day, the people I
meet inspire me…every day, they make me proud…every day they remind me
how
blessed we are to live in the greatest nation on earth.
Serving
as your First Lady
is an honor and a privilege…but back when we first came together four
years
ago, I still had some concerns about this journey we’d begun.
While
I believed deeply in
my husband’s vision for this country…and I was certain he would make an
extraordinary President…like any mother, I was worried about what it
would mean
for our girls if he got that chance.
How
would we keep them
grounded under the glare of the national spotlight? How would they feel
being
uprooted from their school, their friends, and the only home they’d
ever known?
Our
life before moving to
Washington was filled with simple joys…Saturdays at soccer games,
Sundays at
grandma’s house…and a date night for Barack and me was either dinner or
a
movie, because as an exhausted mom, I couldn’t stay awake for both.
And
the truth is, I loved
the life we had built for our girls…I deeply loved the man I had built
that
life with…and I didn’t want that to change if he became President.
I
loved Barack just the way
he was.
You
see, even though back
then Barack was a Senator and a presidential candidate…to me, he was
still the
guy who’d picked me up for our dates in a car that was so rusted out, I
could
actually see the pavement going by through a hole in the passenger side
door…he
was the guy whose proudest possession was a coffee table he’d found in
a
dumpster, and whose only pair of decent shoes was half a size too small.
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