Dear Gisele

A letter to my pseudo sister.

Dear Gisele:

I hope it’s okay if I call you by your first name. I know we’ve never actually met, but we do have a lot in common. You’re a former undocumented immigrant, and I’m an immigration lawyer. Your first language is Portuguese, and I just picked up “Portuguese For Dummies” from Amazon. You live in Pennsylvania but were born in a place that begins with “B,” and I live in Pennsylvania but was born in a place that begins with “B:” Baltimore. You’re a short brunette who wears garish makeup, and I’m a short brunette who wears garish makeup.

Really, we could be sisters.

I once saw you at a professional conference for immigration lawyers where you spoke movingly of your struggle to legalize your status. It was exhilarating, and I came away from it with respect for your resilience. It reminded me of so many of my clients.

As such, I felt it necessary to reach out and give you some advice. True, younger sisters often reject unsolicited suggestions from their much older siblings, but since we don’t actually share any DNA, I’ll take a chance.

You have to take that sweet ego of yours, the one you managed to hide for many years until the national spotlight recently focused on you and your husband John, and pack it away. In case you hadn’t noticed, your husband is ill. Last night, he embarrassed himself before a National audience, because he was too debilitated from that massive stroke he suffered in May (remember? you drove him to the hospital) to provide coherent answers to simple questions.

I know you and your team (now you have a team, girl, look at you!) think that the reason John performed so poorly was because the teleprompter wasn’t working correctly. That’s surprising, since you both approved of the technology which you, in fact, demanded as a prerequisite to debating Dr. Oz. And I know the friendly folk at the Philadelphia Inquirer attempted to gaslight the rest of the state into believing John hit a double when he struck out worse than Casey (pardon the baseball analogy but that team you and your hubby pretend to like is in the World Series and I’m a real fan) but you and I both know he looked like Hansel after he realized the crows ate the breadcrumbs.

John is sick. Any decent wife would take him home, make him rest, keep the stressors at bay. Any decent wife would veto whatever desire he has to advance his brand, indulge his own ego, climb the ladder of electoral success. Any decent wife would say, “you’re still young, we can do this in 2028. Come home with me.” And any decent mother would be more concerned about her children, my pseudo niece and nephews, and prioritize their father’s health over his (and your?) ambition.

Gisele, I know you will chalk these comments up to partisanship. Even though we have so much in common, we are worlds apart in how we view society, our place in it and our obligations to its welfare and continued viability.

But I cried last night watching your husband struggle. I, who cannot stand what you and he represent, shed tears over a man who was suffering, the painful gloss of sweat on his brow. I’m sure you felt the same. You could not be human, and feel otherwise.

So, little pseudo sister, sweet Gisele, take your man home to Braddock. Abandon your dreams of grandeur, emboldened by opportunistic partisans on the left, mocked by frustrated partisans on the right. Go back to being St. Gisele of Pennsylvania, dispensing kindness wherever you go.

But please…whatever else you do…do it in the blessed privacy of your home. Pennsylvania is tired of this show.