I remember watching and reading campaign and election coverage in 1984, and believing that Geraldine Anne Ferraro would become the first female vice president of the United States. Growing up in liberal Western Massachusetts, I had no reason to doubt it would happen. If not with Walter Mondale’s campaign, then in another four years we’d have a woman VEEP. Over the years, I grew increasingly confused by how our country seemed to tread backwards, as if Ferraro’s rise to prominence was just some blip in the system. As a 13-year-old in 1984, I never imagined that I’d have to wait until I had a child of my own to see a woman president.

“The polls indicated that I was feisty, that I was tough, that I had a sense of humor, but they weren't quite sure if they liked me and they didn't know whether or not that I was sensitive,” Ferraro said after the defeat.

I guess today’s feisty woman is nasty.

October is a stressful month for both my husband Mike and me, as each of us is haunted by profound tragedies that occurred in our lives before we met. It doesn’t get easier with each passing year, and as October creeps into our lives so do our separate legacies of loss. As parents of a 4 ½ -year-old highly creative, imaginative superhero-obsessed son, we have come to indulge more and more each year in the festivities surrounding Halloween.