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Special meaning for a historic day

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By Tom Stafford 6:47 PM Saturday, November 21, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — Like flocks of birds whose moving sculptures grace the fall air, we form lines on highways and at airports each November to return to the source of our warmest connections.

So Valerie Knight this week will leave Alexandria, Va., for her mother Lorene Simms’ home on Isabella Street.

And there, at Thanksgiving, she’ll see for the first time a poster that symbolizes a love between her son and her mother — and something more.

Although he moved with his mother to the Washington, D.C., area when he was 9, David Knight, now 29, has maintained a closeness with his grandmother that began over dishes of macaroni and cheese, broccoli casserole and sweet potato souffle during his early years in Springfield.

“I spent every summer there, every Christmas,” he said. “We made every holiday. If my grandma was having a cookout for Memorial Day, I would miss a day of school” to make the trip.

Interested in history, Mrs. Simms has done posters on black entertainers, leaders and sports figures before. And she had just started another one when David called a year ago Nov. 2 with an invitation.

“At first, she wasn’t really up to it,” said David, who works for a telecommunications firm in Columbus.

Her wheelchair had a flat tire and she wasn’t up to standing in line. But when he told her he had a bicycle pump and would come to get her, she couldn’t turn him down.

After fighting traffic, and waiting 45 minutes in line with no apparent progress, Mrs. Simms was tiring. But David wasn’t ready to give up. He got into his SUV, found a checkpoint for the handicapped.

Once there, Mrs. Simms was wheeled to a special spot near the Ohio statehouse. And when Barack and Michelle Obama and their children came down the Ohio Statehouse steps, the man who the next day would make history by being the first black American elected president shook Lorene Simms’ hand.

“She was basically in tears,” David said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that happy. I can’t tell you how happy that made me.”

The next day, Valerie Knight spotted pictures of her mother and son in the Washington Post and on its Web site.

Son Dean, who got items off the Internet for her, would find his mother looking over clippings of the pictures at 3 a.m.

David, it seems, mentioned he’d like the poster as a birthday present.

“She worked on it relentlessly,” Valerie Knight said, and it was finished in time for David’s birthday in July.

When Valerie Knight sees it for the first time this week, she’ll see something that does more than tell the story of a landmark moment in the nation’s history. It tells the story of a landmark event her mother never thought she’d see and, as important, one she shared with the grandson she loves.

All that will be reason enough for Valerie Knight to pause and give thanks.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com.

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