Thank you, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Thank you for your many years of service, hard work and dedication, in the face of relentless accusations, slander and misunderstanding.

Thank you for fighting always for women and children, for minorities, for the handicapped, the GLBTQ community and for the vulnerable who require affordable health care.

Thank you for enduring disrespect, insult and threats the like of which no candidate before you has withstood. Thank you for standing your ground with dignity, for holding women to a higher aspiration, a higher purpose.

And now America has spoken. So we must move forward.

Will we forget that glass ceiling? Will we return to complacency, accepting life in second-class land?

Or will we carry that torch forward?

I hope, I pray that this is just one more beginning. One more step along the way.

We woke up on the wrong side of history this morning, in more than one way.

Only time will tell HOW wrongly this history will spin out.

The world has survived worse.

We will rise, dust off our pantsuits, and try again.

Me, I refuse to entertain hatred, fear and bigotry. These are not my touchstones.

My love to all, and best wishes for the coming years.

Donna Carrick