As much as I miss my mama, I can’t help but think that God in His mercy took her home last August before the political mess became so… messy.

My mother was a passionate conservative, a proud Republican. She watched the news with her father when she was a teenager, as well as baseball and Gorgeous George, the wrestler. She didn’t carry her interest in baseball or wrestling into adulthood, but she always watched the news, and before her health declined, she was very active in the Republican political scene in her community.

As I’ve gone through the things at her house, I’ve discovered dozens of elephants, many adored in red, white and blue enamel. Lapel pins, earrings, buttons, stickers – you name it,  I’ve found it. She loved Ronald Reagan and the Bushes. We will not get into debates about whether they were good or not — she also believed in Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment:

Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.

I know that she would be heartbroken by the condition of our nation, the travesty that our government has become – both sides guilty without question. I ran across the following obituary, which I think explains it pretty well:

The Republican Party, 162, has died