the path that led me here in recent weeks was no doubt unexpected but I'm no stranger to unlikely Journeys so my mother our mother shamala Harris had one of her own and I miss her every day and especially right now and I know she's looking down smiling I know that so my mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone traveling from India to California with an unshakable dream to be the scientist who would Cure breast cancer when she finished school she was supposed to return home to a traditional arranged marriage but as fate would have it she met my father Donald Harris a student from Jamaica [Applause] they they fell in love and got married and that act of self-determination made my sister Maya and Me growing up we moved a lot I will always remember that big Mayflower truck packed with all our belongings ready to go to Illinois to Wisconsin and wherever our parents jobs took us my early memories of our parents together are very joyful ones a home filled with laughter and music AA cold train and miles at the park my mother would say stay close but my father would say as he smiled run comma run Don't Be Afraid don't let anything stop you from my earliest years he taught me to be Fearless but the harmony between my parents did not last when I was in elementary school they split up and it was mostly my mother who raised us before she could finally afford to buy a home she rented a small apartment in the East Bay in the bay in Bay you either live in the Hills or the flat lands we lived in the flats a beautiful workingclass neighborhood of firefighters nurses and construction workers all who tended their lawns with pride my mother she worked long hours and like many working parents she leaned on a trust usted Circle to help raise us Mrs Shelton who ran the daycare below us and became a second mother Uncle Sherman Aunt Mary uncle Freddy Auntie Chris none of them family by Blood and all of them family by love family who taught us how to make gumbo how to play chests and sometimes even let us win family Who Loved Us believed in us and told us we could be anything and do anything they instilled in us the values they personified Community faith and the importance of treating others as you would want to be treated with kindness respect and compassion my mother was a brilliant 5 foot tall brown woman with an accent and as the eldest child as the eldest child I saw how the world would sometimes treat her but my mother never lost her cool she was tough courageous a Trailblazer in the fight for Women's Health and she taught Maya and me a lesson that Michelle mentioned the other night she taught us to never complain about Injustice but do something about it do something about it [Music] n [Music]