I sort through reflections shell-shocked, as after a crucial family event. Something happened, something huge, that alters the shape of the future and what went before. A marriage, a death, a birth, things will never be the same. Where do I find myself in this confusing context? How steady myself and focus on what’s ahead?

For nine years, I have gawked at and dreaded the ascent of Trump. I adjudge him the worst of mankind, as you’re probably tired of hearing, a violation of every value and precept I hold dear. I also believe that leaders shape history. Yes, they are products of their hour, but then they transform their hour. Our world is unimaginable without Jesus, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, George Washington, Napoleon, Lincoln, Hitler, for better or worse. An America led by Trump was not the same America envisioned by our Founders and rescued by Lincoln, FDR, and countless selfless soldiers. For me, it was a nasty repellent address that maimed my faith in democracy. If we the people opted for Trump, we the people were not fit for self-rule.

I can’t say Trump ruined my life – personally, I’ve never known a more joyous period – but he sure disrupted my sleep. I feared – for my descendants and for civilization itself, which is predicated on sensible governance. Bad leaders produce bad results for all but the privileged few. A malevolent dictator in the world’s most powerful nation would stifle originality and trample institutional restraints. His success would encourage other dictators, till there was no freedom left for the many. No more art, no more thought, no more science, diversity, difference, caution, candor! I could hear the knock on the door.

It dumbfounded me that, witnessing Trump, all gorges didn’t rise in disgust. Swollen faces ballyhooed a monster they wouldn’t hire to babysit. In eight years, I haven’t located a single thoughtful supporter of this miscreant. Attempt a discussion and I was met with obloquy and ridicule for my reliance on “fake news.” I still don’t get it, not really. Maybe I never will.

Inescapable infirmities of age prevented this David (or Joe) from besting this Goliath. Sad, unfair, but such is life. In an age so sunk in selfishness would any leader surrender his rule to a younger, fitter successor? Maybe this Joe was another tyrant, just humbly attired? Few tyrants die gently in their beds.

We got lucky. Man, did we ever! I speak as if Goliath had been thumped when he still looms large, as if our D-Day was yesterday and not a hundred days hence. My joy is premature, granted, my confidence pernicious if it persuades me to relax. I am sure now the battle will be won – big-time – the snake scotched – with majorities that permit America to repair the structural defects that led to this near-calamity. The war may not be over, but the worm has turned.

My soul brims with gratitude – to Whom, I couldn’t say – Fate, Luck, Destiny, Chance, God, all synonyms more or less. I can breathe again as my heart subsides from my throat. My grandkids might live in freedom. No knock on the door.

The foremost lesson I derive from our ordeal is, curiously, my family’s (fake) armorial motto: Nil Desperandum – Never Despair. In nation no less than notions, gloom is our enemy – and a dangerous indulgence. Be mad, yes, but not sad. Oust lazy fatalism if you can – turn that frown upside down! Consider the little you can do, not the infinitude you can’t and – who knows? – any moment now darkness might give way to dawn.