With 2015 in the books and the final year of the Obama administration fast unfurling, it seemed that Anita Ross’ dream of meeting President Barack Obama while he was still in office was going to go unrealized.
Obama concluded his annual Hawaii Christmas vacation Saturday, and it has been widely assumed that he will remain in Washington, D.C., next holiday season as he prepares to leave office.
“Meeting President Obama and (first lady) Michelle was definitely on my bucket list,” said the 55-year-old Nordstrom brand ambassador from Ewa Beach. “It just didn’t seem like it was going to happen.”
But just two days prior to the first family’s departure, Ross got a call from good friend Jennifer Carruthers.
Ross’ daughter Danielle Burrows and Carruthers’ daughter Sydney are close friends, and the two women have built a similarly tight bond.
Ross knew that Carruthers’ husband worked on the Obamas’ security detail, but never considered using the connection to try to get close to the president. Still, Carruthers knew how much Ross admired Obama. That night on the phone, she passed along the offer of a lifetime: “How’d you like to see the president?”
Ross was floored.
“It was so sudden,” Ross said, still laughing at the memory. “I didn’t have a chance to lose weight or get my hair done!”
On Saturday, Ross stood with daughters Danielle and Nicole Burrows and 84-year-old mother Dorothy Wilson — three generations of strong, independent women — amid a hundred or so service personnel and other specially selected guests at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and patiently waited for the presidential motorcade to arrive.
There was much that Ross wanted to tell the president. She wanted to tell him how much she admired him and his wife for being “normal” people who achieved success through hard work and perseverance. She wanted to tell him to keep his head up no matter what adversity he might continue to face in his last year in office. She wanted to tell him how he inspired her and her family, not because he too is African-American, but simply because he is a good man with good family values.
And when the moment finally arrived, when the Obamas emerged from their black SUV and made their way around the periphery of the barricade, shaking hands and sharing holiday greetings with the assembled crowd, Ross stood face to face with the president and said … none of it.
“I was star-struck,” she said. “I just screamed.”
That was Saturday. Ross is still coming down from the experience.
“I feel like I’ve been set free,” she said. “I just want to go out into the world with nothing but good intentions, trust and love. I feel like nobody can touch me.”
Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.
