The following is a personal message of thanks to Secretary Clinton, but one that I think has the ability to resonate with many others.
Secretary Clinton:
I have been meaning to sit down and write this since Wednesday afternoon, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead I tried to busy myself making sure others were "okay"--quickly realizing that is something you, Madam Secretary, have always done. While part of this is deeply personal, much of it, I believe, reflects what so many of us feel, especially those who have worked with you, learned from you and will always be at the ready for you. I also think it speaks to what people at home and abroad have learned about you and from you--above and beyond your Sunday evening television watching habits (which I commend).
So here it goes.
Thank you.
Thank you for not bowing to conventional wisdom and challenging the status quo from a young age. Thank you for showing us that a defeat is not always a loss, but that it can simply be a challenge to find other ways to serve and inspire. Thank you for being decades ahead of popular sentiment, but inspiring it.
Thank you for proclaiming women's rights are human rights; for advocating for early childhood education; for introducing microfinance to rural Arkansas in the early 1980s; and showing the world that girls' education, food security and global health are central to national security.
Thank you for encouraging us to take risks and believing in our ideas--whether it was encouraging a Text for Haiti program or deciding to speak out about opioids and mental health when few, if any others, would.
Thank you for sharing your stories--be they well known from the Yale Law Library or of Richard Holbrooke chasing you into a women's restroom in Pakistan. Of the importance of hot sauce and neti pots, or of taking vodka shots with John McCain. For your great sense of humor, your famous laugh, but just as importantly, your ability to laugh at yourself. For asking the back-benchers in a meeting what they think and listening as intently to them as you do to people forty years their senior. For a ravenous appetite to learn and hear different points of view. For making the State Department a better, more responsive workplace, by offering benefits for same-sex partners of Foreign Service Officers, to sending Mothers and Father's Day messages reminding people of the different types of leave they can take, all the way down to the installation of showers for bicycle commuters.
Thank you for not only providing us with your mentorship, but for that of Capricia, Minyon, Kiki, Jen and so many others. Thank you especially for Cheryl (who has taught me that no matter the challenge, when you believe in something, or someone, you fight for it, or them. And that Monday morning quarterbacks are not the ones who get things done) and Maggie (who has pushed me for 14 years to go beyond my comfort zone, while making sure I knew she believed in me). Each of these women, despite, or perhaps because of, all they have been through continue to work towards one goal--making the world a better and fairer place.
Thank you for showing everyone that you can be the MOTB (mother of the bride--as I learned) and attend to the most urgent matters on the world stage. Thank you for demonstrating that women's hairstyles are far more complicated than men's and doing so in the public eye. Thank you for creating an entire fashion market for the pantsuit on your own.
Thank you for showing us that words matter, but they matter more when accompanied by deeds. For being a workhorse, not a show horse. For not letting anyone tell you something isn't right or isn't working, without pushing them to find a solution and implement it. For inspiring millions upon millions of men, women and children around the world and for believing in and working towards a world where "every child should be able to live up to his or her G-d-given potential." Because it is true.
Thank you for not being afraid to show emotion, even in the face of criticism. For taking in stride the cuts from shattering so many glass ceilings. And for never giving up.
Thank you for inspiring me in Battell Chapel on Old Campus in 1992 and for continuing to inspire me to this day. For pushing me to be a better person who knows how to dream, but also understands that hope alone is not a strategy.
Lastly, thank you for making all of us, whether we know you as Hillary, FLOAR, FLOTUS, HRC, Senator, or S (Secretary), know we matter to you. That our success and our happiness is not something you take for granted in your own pursuit of a new title, but it is rather what has driven that pursuit.
And an advanced thank you, for continuing to fight for what you believe in - to work for a better tomorrow, even on the cloudiest of days.
(Oh and thank you for reading this letter written with an e.e. cummings' inspired approach to grammar)
I, and so many others, will forever be one of your happy warriors.
-caitlin
Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me
Know I've still got a lot of fight left in me
-Rachel Platten (@rachelplatten)