On October 29, 2024 I found myself inside of the Ellipse listening to Kamala Harris give her campaign speech in Washington, D.C.
I was there to visit Hannah and Blake whose new jobs required them to live in the area.
When Hannah realized that the Vice President was not only going to be in town but was going to speak outside she was like, “Mom, we should try to go.” We registered online.
That afternoon we waited almost 3 hours in a line that wound up going nowhere and soon found ourselves being herded towards the opening somewhere ahead of us.
Actually, ALL of the lines were dissolving into crowds trying to get in at the last minute.
We were quickly swarmed into a small area where we were being crushed up against the fence. The officers on the other side were closing the gate. No one else was coming in until they cleared out folks who were being asked to leave. Hannah and I intertwined our hands and promised each other whatever happened we would not let go.
The situation was really scary. As the crowd swarmed again Hannah saw me start to trip and helped me step over a curb because if I fell I would be trampled. I turned around to the woman behind me and said something like, “Mind the curb. If any one of us falls we will be trampled”. She thanked me and immediately told the person pushing up behind her who told the next person and so on.
Miraculously, somewhere in the passage of information, the ‘practice of repair had begun’. Folks started looking out for one another.
The officers let out the offenders, opened the gate slowly and we walked in peacefully, thanked the officers and quietly got into the security line for final checks.
~Lydia Patrick
