Through My Eyes: A Homecoming at Vancouver’s Hands Off Rally — 4/5/25

This was our first protest together in 27 years — but somehow, it felt like home.

Illustration AI generated with DALL·E inspired by real scenes from the Hands Off Rally in Vancouver, WA

I didn’t expect to cry.

Not out of sadness, not even from joy, exactly — but from something subtler yet infinitely deeper. A recognition, perhaps. A reckoning. A sense of arrival that comes quietly, like the first warm breath of spring that whispers winter’s end.

This wasn’t the fierce joy of celebration or the sorrowful acknowledgment of a hard-won battle. It was softer, gentler, and infinitely more complicated.

It was relief.

Me on the left and my husband Michael on the right at the Hands Off Rally in Esther Short Park. Sunshine, solidarity, and love were in full bloom that Saturday — and so were we. Selfie-photo by @ezrakidowski

A First for Us

Saturday marked the first time in our twenty-seven years together that Michael and I stood side-by-side at a political protest.

Not just adjacent, not merely sharing space, but fully present — our arms occasionally brushing, fingers lacing together instinctively as we listened.

We were there with members of our chosen family from church: our pastor, her wife, and their daughter; and others we’ve come to love.