Amy Acton for Ohio's Governor

Last night, my husband, Mark, and I co-hosted an event for Dr. Amy Acton for Ohio Governor. We were in downtown Cincinnati’s Studio Kroner surrounded by Ken Landon Buck’s paintings of Ohio’s Serpent Mound, where the mystery of time, the complexity of land, and the tenacity of sacredness, stand immemorial. As does the reminder that we are stewards not only for a patch of raised grass but of future generations to be raised here in Ohio.

Our primary hosts Paul Kroner and Elaine Olund, along with 6 other co-hosts, convened writers and artists, chefs and poets, physicians, businesspersons, entrepreneurs, and moms, dads, grandparents, and friends. Essentially, no billionaires occupied space in that room. We were everyday ordinary people who understood how the current political climate in the state has left many other everyday ordinary people behind.

Paul Kroner said it best when he introduced Dr. Amy Acton to the audience. “We are living through a moment that calls not only for political leadership, but for moral leadership— leadership grounded in empathy, integrity, reason, and service to others.

“For many Ohioans, Dr. Acton demonstrated those qualities during one of the most challenging periods in our state’s history. She led with compassion, relied on science and facts, and never lost sight of the people behind the statistics.”

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For those who don’t know, Dr. Acton was named as the State of Ohio’s director of the Department of Health in 2019. In 2020, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine appeared daily and weekly at 2 p.m. on our screens across Ohio for updates on the pandemic, along with Dr. Acton working closely at his side, despite their distinct political affiliations. Amy stood tall every day—this approximately 5’ 6” physician—and told us the truth. Something you’d expect from a northeast Ohio girl.

Amy is from Youngstown. She grew up with food and housing insecurity (while my sisters and I bemoaned Higbee’s jeans and our classmates wore Jordache). Neighbors offered Amy and her brother breakfast on their way school, knowing their cupboards were bare (while my father cut our grapefruit halves every morning).

Dr. Acton shies away from no one. In those earlier years of the 2020s, Amy pushed back against those who cast doubt on the use of the science of medicine to steer the ship. When she needed to pivot—because that’s what the latest science revelations demanded—she modeled for us to do so as well.

She is schooled, trained, and practiced in pediatrics and preventative medicine. It’s a difficult job to train in predicting the future to prevent a catastrophe today, let alone protecting the future of our children too. As Amy absorbed the struggles of Ohioans and gathered others to prepare for whatever storms might strike, she pointed us in a hopeful direction.

And there she stood now. Paul Kroner’s sentence in his introduction, how Amy “never lost sight of the people” stuck with me in contrast to newspaper articles that claim she has no vision for the future. Her work, her policies, and her hands reaching across aisles, drive toward this vision, leading with one ideal.

When a people are broken, offering wishful thinking or pie-in-the-sky cliches do not provide assurances, let alone offer opportunity for growth in wealth and well-being. There can only be truth. Contained within that truth is healing.

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Now in my sixties, twenty-five years ago, I experienced a traumatic loss as a young mother, cared for two aging parents in my fifties, and was hit by a car after my mother died. With trauma of any sort, there is no vision of the “other side” for people to find stability (normalcy is irrelevant) without healing. This is what Amy, a physician, practices, and promises us.

Don’t get me wrong. She knows her business numbers and understands the value of life. Hers is a rare combination of moral strength and corporate intellect.

People are tired, exhausted, working two-three jobs to get by. Or unable to work at all. My Pilates instructor wakes up every morning, teaches two class, works as a manager for a coffee roaster, and instructs another class or two at night.

What matters now is eschewing any likeness to the David Copperfield now we’ve settled a war, now we haven’t sort of illusions being played out before eyes and in our pocketbooks. We need someone within our state who LOVES our state, and wants to connect all of Ohio’s valuable resources—natural, industrial, and human ones—to produce a better wage and way of living for all.

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At the end of the evening, Landon Buck’s paintings vibrated with Amy’s energy and the audience’s thunderous applause, in contrast to the grounding nature of the paintings’ subject matter. Before her departure, Amy shared a little-known fact from Covid. During that time, she and Gov. Dewine were sent artworks from across the state. People poured their time and energy into making sense of Covid, into finding the meaning in it. There are roomfuls of this art.

We’ve yet to come together around this episode in our nation and every nation’s history. Humanity shared in this staggering event. To contain it with a single sculpture, book or film is not possible. Even today, there are hundreds of books written about WWII, trying to make it make sense. This will go on until…

This we know: After any sort of tragedy, before fully thriving once more, one must heal. That was what Any offered. If we continue forward without such reflection from the physical, political, and emotional tolls of Covid, we will be no better than the Greatest Generation who didn’t share their experiences because they didn’t know how, and which left behind a trail of generational trauma where their children or grandchildren are still lost today. That’s what would await us in years to come. That sense of malaise, of being stuck, of burying ourselves.

Don’t you want to feel alive again, in the state into which most of us (74%) were born?

I recall watching Amy onscreen in 2020, thinking of the medical professionals we admired (my husband included) seeing the value of their sacrifices lifted, of young women and girls experiencing a future version of themselves, of parents like me wondering how this would play out for our young adult children, being reassured in some small way by Dr. Acton. (And Governor Dewine). And as an artist, trying to make meaning.

Before the fundraising event of Amy Acton for Governor, Mark and I stood with the candidate for a photograph. Behind us was Burn’s painting titled The Reverence. For word geeks like me, the insertion of “the” is important. Without the article, reverence is abstract, a concept. With the article, its indicative of a specific action—a nod to future generations who will live on Ohio lands. The (same) reverence is what Amy brings to her work, to the hearts of all Ohioans.

Upcoming Author Appearances and Other Notable Events - with some of my favorite people.

July 28 - Caring for the Caregiver Writing Experience, virtual, FREE. REGISTER. Contact Kara Pierson Harper. Phone: (513) 244-5494. Email: kpierson@muchmorethanameal.org.

September 1 - West Virginia Italian American Festival, 5:30 p.m. Clarksburg Public Library. Details coming soon.

Oct 15 & Oct 29 - LitCleveland - Finding Memoir in Food. Sign up for LitCleveland, or return here for details.

October 21 - Lloyd Library and Museum in partnership with Fotofocus, Presentation - Chestnuts: The New Comeback Kids. More details to follow.

November 14 - Books the Banks.