Think You'll Be Happy by Nicole Avant

Author:Nicole Avant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

This is the nature of service: to step up when called.

As I studied and met with various senators and other leaders in Washington leading up to my Senate confirmation hearing, something magical happened: an African man who served as a bellhop/valet at my hotel told me that he and his colleagues had been praying regularly for me. Then, on the day of the actual hearing, one of the Black janitors said to me, “Go get ’em girl—I’m praying for you. I’ve been here a long time—it feels so good watching you walk through these halls.”

With that in mind, I felt invincible.

In my remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I wanted to highlight why it was so important to me to heed Barack Obama’s call to serve—and why my ancient and recent history was leading me to this work:

North Carolina is where my father was born in 1931 and where the seeds of hard work, big dreams, and pure ethics were planted in my character. My father left home at the age of fourteen to escape the evils of the Jim Crow South. He never received a formal education, but because of his values, he rose to become chairman and leader of several major companies and a trusted advisor to leaders in media, politics, business, and civil rights. My mother and father instilled in me the values of hard work, service to others, and respect and honor for all men and women without prejudice.

Both Democrats and Republicans were positive about my nomination, until I got a call one day as I landed back at LAX airport.

Apparently, one Democratic senator was threatening to not vote for me because he hadn’t gotten a meeting with me when I’d been in DC. The first thing I did after hearing this was to call my dad, in tears. “I may not become an ambassador because somebody has something against me—and I can’t believe that that somebody is from my own party,” I wailed.

Now, other times that I’ve called my dad crying, he’s simply said, “It is what it is” and hung up. My dad is full of one-liners like that: “It is what it is—what are you going to do about it?” “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” “Live every day as if it were your last, because someday you’re gonna be right.” Even now, at each breakfast we share, I’ll be bemoaning something I’ve read in the paper or seen on TV, and he’ll just say, “Hey, listen, nothing remains the same.” So back then I was expecting another one-liner from Dad.

He surprised me. This was one of the relatively few times that I’ve heard my dad be extremely patient on the other end of the line and really let me cry something out.

Finally he said, “Nicole, you have to keep the faith.”

Easier said than done, Dad.

I said, “They want me to go back to DC tomorrow,” as though they’d asked me to donate a kidney or drown a puppy or something.

Clarence said, “You’re going.

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