Sometimes you wonder if it is worth it.

            Face it, you live in a flyover state that is as red as red can be. Who cares what you think about the rantings of a Trump, the meanness of a Huckabee, the quiet strangeness of a Carson, the evasiveness of a Clinton, the apocalyptic visions of a Sanders, or even the Hamlet-like soliloquy of a “shall I or shall I not run” Biden?

            Why spend time and effort parsing a Constitution few people really care about beyond whether or not isolated bits or pieces of it can be twisted to support their particular cause—regardless of whether or not the document, taken in its entirety, really says what they say it says?

            Why get all worked up about it? You don’t have enough time left on this planet, what Vonnegut described as our “peephole in time”, to see this country rectify its shortcomings. Likewise, odds are you will be off the stage before anyone can fatally screw it up for good.

            In the words of that great philosopher Alfred E. Neuman, “What, me worry?”

            Then something happens that makes you realize why you care.

            Middle child delayed marriage until her thirties. She and her husband wanted a family, but with her body chemistry knocked out of whack after a bout with thyroid cancer, that was easier said than done. With a little science, a little luck, and not a little bit of prayer, she conceived, only to see if all end with a miscarriage.

            Undaunted, with a little more science, a little more luck, and more than a little more prayer, she was expecting again—with twins no less!

            But the joy was tempered with concern. With age, a history of a temperamental body chemistry, and a recent miscarriage, all being issues, could she carry the little boy and little girl to term—or anywhere close to term? Could both embryos develop normally in what was turning out to be a “high risk” pregnancy?

            Matters become even murkier when baby boy turned out to be very small, as in “less than fifth percentile” small. Would he continue to develop, and if he did not, what happens to baby sister whose fate is inexorably tied to that of her brother?

The entire family tiptoes past the first trimester, and then the second. Baby boy is coming along, still small, but viable. Everyone begins to breathe easier. At 31 weeks, the high-risk doctor says things are going well, it’s looking as though mom might make it, if not to the magic full term, then darn close.

The next day, mom is in labor. Fifteen hours later, the world’s population is increased by a 3-pound 4-ounce boy and a 3-pound 14-ounce girl. Both are whisked off to the incubators in the neonatal intensive care unit.

After an all-night and all-day vigil, you get to see them the next afternoon in the NICU.

There are monitors and flashing lights, beeps and tones, wires and tubes, all leading to the two tiniest human beings you have ever seen. And there they lie—helpless.

The time comes when they tell you to disinfect your hands. Here, open this round door on the side of the incubator, and put in your hand. You do as you are told. With your index finger, you stroke the palm of the little boy. And his tiny fingers wrap around yours—and hold on for all they’re worth.

Then it hits you between the eyes. None of this political stuff is about you. It’s all about these two recent additions to the body politic—and their five cousins. What is the America that will be there for them?

Now, there is a debate worth having! And if all you have to contribute to it, living in a flyover state that is as red as red can be, is your own two cents worth, then by golly, toss those pennies into the kettle of political discourse for whatever they’re worth and have at it.

As this is written, those two tiny people, living in their incubator world, in that big beautiful maze of a hospital, deserve nothing less than your best effort.

And the best efforts of all of us, as collectively we stumble and fumble forward, we hope, “in order to form a more perfect Union … and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Posterity.”

            Welcome to America, kids. You make it worth it.