Pa passed away in 1995; their other three grandparents died in the past few years.
A video camera recorded the moment when she was first placed in my Gampy’s arms.
I’ve watched the scene many times.
She gazed up at him, rapt.
He thought for a second.
To thine own self be true.
A large, irregularly shaped birthmark on my thigh made the prospect of swimwear even more daunting.
My dad was running for governor, so a local news reporter came over to interview us.
I would have been thrilled to see the cameras if I hadn’t just experienced a breakup.
Now I just hoped to make it through the interview without humiliating myself.
The task seemed simple enough.
The segment was a straightforward profile of the politician and his family.
My father said, in front of everyone, Oh, is thatEriccalling?
The cameras kept rolling.
I hurried to get the phone, so discomfited that on the way I ran directly into a wall.
My accident aired on the evening news.
I suppose they thought it made us seem like a real family.See?
Even politicians have mortified, uncoordinated adolescent daughters!
That was not the last time I would be embarrassed on television or in the press.
I have had bad hair.
I have gone blank.
All in front of millions of people.
And I have heard about it.
Everyone from op-ed writers to trolls on Twitter have parsed my words and my appearance.
I’ve been on the covers of tabloids with my sister alongside headlines like Oops!
They Did It Again: The Bush Girls Latest Scrape.
As a tween, I was preoccupied with how I looked.
And I never have fully outgrown that insecurity.
And I have other, bigger fears now.
One is that people will judge me either positively or negatively because of my family.
It resonated with my most vulnerable part, corroborating an inner voice that said,That person is right.
As we had our makeup done, Maria asked me what was new.
I began talking through my schedule.
It was an insane blur of travel and work.
Maria stopped me and said, I’d like to tell you a story.
Aren’t you a Kennedy?
(She is the niece of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. “Now, I’m a sixtyish-year-old woman, Maria said.
I’ve been a journalist for decades.
I’ve won awards.
I’ve raised huge sums of money for Alzheimer’s research.
And for some people, none of that will ever matter.
I will always be known as a Kennedy.
That’s also true for you.
No matter what you do, you will always be known as a Bush.
I knew she spoke the truth.
My sister and I both do.
Maria forced me to ask myself:Why so much work?
When people ask, How can you bear being on TV and being constantly criticized for every little thing?
I say that my skin has become thickened by decades of public life.
I’ve come to realize that in my heart I know what is true and what is not.
I can’t let strangers make me doubt myself or see me as someone who I’m not.
I watch her eyes in the video, looking up at him with wonder.
From those very first moments, she trusted him completely.
And I believe she heard his message.
Now, six years later, she is completely and unapologetically herself.
Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
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