A political chat with Gecys

The wedding of Rasa and Len was lovely, and it was a privilege to attend, but I was not able to shake the feeling that Vaiva was supposed to be there for it. Occasions such as this make her absence especially acute, exquisitely painful.

During the reception I spoke with some of Vaiva's friends who I did not know, women who had worked closely with her. They expressed their admiration of my support for all her work for Lithuania, which surprised them given that I have no ethnic connection to Lithuania. They should not have been surprised, and I never actually did anything for Lithuania or her organizations. I only ever did anything for Vaiva, and whatever it was, I did it because I loved her, and that trumped everything. I admit I became emotional as I tried to convey this idea to them.

You might as well be surprised that I remember to breathe, until you understand that without oxygen I will die.

Later I chatted with Mr. and Mrs. Gecys, I believe it was he who recruited Vaiva to be his successor as the President of the Lithuanian-American Community. We got onto the subject of politics, and I forgot that my voice tends to carry. They are evidently center-left Democrats, I am a conservative, formerly a Republican, so the conversation was somewhat spirited.

They were convinced that Vaiva was a liberal, certainly not so right wing as me. Vaiva's politics were mostly diplomatic, she could make anyone believe that she was on their side (rather like Obama during the Presidential campaign). In Lithuania Vaiva rebuffed overtures from several political parties that might have led to political office. In part she preferred to remain an independent, and in part she relished the executive position over the legislative. She felt all accomplishment lay in the executive branch.

Here's something I did not mention. Before I met Vaiva, I was a liberal. That would be when I was a freshman at MIT. By the time I met her, when I was a sophomore and she a freshman, I was already entertaining doubts about liberal orthodoxy, but it would be more than fair to say that Vaiva made me into a conservative.

I embraced her philosophy with the enthusiasm of the convert, and occasional went "over the top" in her view. But in the main, we were on the same page.