"The Truth,  nothing but the truth: The Lady in the Red Dress" by Sam Hamod

In honor of the foremost lady of American and world journalism, Helen Thomas

It’s a long drive
in the 1940s from Detroit, from your dad’s old grocery store,
to Washington, DC,   the roads are
long and narrow, and when you get into
the mountains of Pennsylvania, you can smell the coal dust, 
winding around those mountains,
have to go carefully, around hairpin
turns on old mining roads, but you keep going,
the lights of Washington, DC glowing,
the place your parents placed so deep
in your mind,  and in  your heart

Washington in Ike’s time, was
full of tension, full of promise and fear, a
war that was in question,  but your questions
the ones that came to  your mind, were always
the same then, as they are now,
your questions were the ones the steelworkers in Gary,
the auto workers in Detroit,
the fisherman in Louisiana,
the farmers in Iowa,
the dock workers in New York
and the cotton farmers down south
wanted answered
were the same as they are now, you always
wanted to know the “why of it”, the truth, not
just the jargon that covered up so many indecisions,
 mistakes and lies,  even if you loved the president,
as you loved JFK, you knew, you spoke,
he was still accountable to the people,  he was there
to serve the people,   and your
voice was that, the voice of the people, and there
you were, with that strong vibrant, Lebanese voice, that striking red dress,
following the dreams of your mother and father,
when they told us,
 we were all lucky they came to America,  that place of dreams,
that new place that gave them a chance,
that gave us a chance
to be what they wanted to be,
for us  to be what we wanted to be, to
become what we are, what we were, and what our
parents hoped we could be—they knew how lucky
they were to come here,
 but that made us make a promise,
to take an unsaid oath, to make this country what they thought it was,
what they thought it could be, and we were responsible to help,
the words heard at the dinner table and in church on Sundays
never disappeared in the morass and complexities of time, Winchester, Kentucky,
Detroit, Michigan,  Toledo, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC,
Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, all the same country, all the same people,
stayed with you in every breathing moment

Each day, was another long day, at the National Press Club, until you
became the first woman to be their president, you worked, with that vision,
until at United Press International, you attained the journalist’s dream,
To have the first seat, in the first row of the White House Press Conference,
this was no easy feat,  this  honor bestowed
on few,    and none held that seat for so long, nor in such an honest
and distinguished a fashion, with your eyes focused on truth,   your
fiery tongue lashed out against fobbing generalizations that said nothing, 
though there were moments of humor, then heartbreak when John Kennedy
was assassinated, you carried on,
there were no softballs from you,  
Nixon, though he feared you, knew
you were chasing that dream, the same as he had
when young at the Quaker church,  then,
when the Reagan crew and others tried to get u to come to their
intimate dinners, where other media people pleaded to be invited, 
you said, “No, though I respect you and appreciate your invitation, our 
jobs are different and I don’t want to compromise mine.”
and so it was, you would rather eat at Mama Aisha’s table , and see
Mama sitting in that old chair, 
 that short, grey haired,  round woman, with eyes
that saw everything, ears that never missed a word,
she would sit each night
and see the people come and go, but when you arrived, it was like
her daughter had come home from a long trip, even if it was only from yesterday, 
always full of teasing you as if she was your mother, and in a sense, she was,   
 she’d want to see your coffee cup, always tell you, “Ah, it’s good luck,
 between the bites of what she called,  “Helen Salad,” 
salata of tomatoes, olive oil, lemon and onions,  
or the stuffed grapeleaves and hummus,
and the buzzing  conversations with congresspeople who might come,
 or the bubbling Dorothy Newman,
or your two nieces who hung on your every word,   as did we all,
Mama’s netphew, like her son, Abdullah was always at your beck and call, always for “Aunt Helen,”
everyone knew there was only one of you in America, in the world, and
we were gifted to sit at dinner with you, 
with too much food, with a lot of good talks, 
and the warmth of our shared blood and concerns for the country and for the world,
 for Palestine, Lebanon and peace for America.

So tonight, we honor you, as does the world—
there has never been a journalist or person like you,
with the courage, tenacity and determination
to make our dreams come true, to fight for the truth,
the truth that is so necessary in a democracy, a democracy
our parents came for, a democracy we know is so precious,
your voice was our voice, 
the voice of those farmers in Iowa, 
steelworkers in Pittsburgh and Gary,
auto workers in Detroit, and old Arabs
in their little grocery stores where their wives and children
lived upstairs above those stores,
your voice, your questions and your courage
spoke for all of us, you were ours and we are yours,
Helen, the truth, as you always said,
the truth at all costs