A Letter to My Wife the Day After The Election,

Our bedroom is right over our kitchen, which means that when you get up early with our son, I can always hear the two of you playing while you make him breakfast. I can hear you singing as you put the dirty plates in the dishwasher and as he takes them back out again. And last night at 2:00, I could hear you eating cereal and crying.

This is one of those things I'm not supposed to try to make better. This loss is brutal and startling for us both, but I can't begin to contextualize how sad it must be for you. You insisted on being the one to mail our ballots because of what it meant to you. You asked me if I thought men really knew what the cultural stakes were for women in this election. You started the evening excited, with a one-year-old in your lap who couldn't understand yet, but who we thought might thrill in the telling years later of how we stayed up late with him and watched history unfold.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

And it did unfold, but not the direction we were expecting.

I'm so sorry. I can only watch you hurt, because trying to qualify it, to look on the bright side, or equate it to anything in my life rings as tone-deaf. I know that. I can only hug you when you want it and leave you alone when need that. I just want you to know that, whether upstairs or next to you or miles and miles away, I'm with you, I love you, and I hate knowing your heart is breaking.