Not Afraid of Life Read online

  Also, remember Uncle Mike? Suddenly, stories about that stupid Taser incident started bubbling up again. Not as an example of how our family tried to help Aunt Molly. Instead, the news organizations were wrongly accusing my parents of trying to get him fired from his job as a state trooper. It was an “abuse of power” story, one of the worst kinds when you’re running for office. The press even gave it a -gate suffix, which no politician ever wants. They called it “Troopergate,” though in Alaska we called it “Tasergate.”

  Because none of these accusations were actually torn down by the McCain campaign, people began thinking that she wasn’t qualified to be vice president, that she was McCain’s “Hail Mary pass,” and that she would wilt under the heat of the national spotlight. By the time the GOP convention started, Mom’s media image had been so twisted that we looked forward to her actually being able to speak for herself, which she was used to doing and excelled at.

  As Mom prepared for the speech, we were new, unknown, from an exotic locale. And wow, what a speech . . . Even though it was natural for us to be getting media attention, it seemed to be hard for Meghan. This tension finally came to a head.

  On the evening of September 3, we were preparing for Mom’s speech. Every time we went out into the convention center, we were to look camera-ready. The McCain campaign believed that packaging was one of the most important aspects of our big debut at the convention, and all of us dutifully went along. Two makeup experts and hairdressers were available to us on the floor of our hotel, and they were in charge of spiffing us up. On the night of Mom’s speech, I was sitting in the chair getting my hair done with Willow, when a wet-headed Meghan McCain stormed into the room. She was late and needed someone to help her.

  She looked at all of us sitting there getting our makeovers, GOP style. (Hey, that sounds like a good idea for a reality television show! What about it, TLC, now that Mom’s Alaska show is over?) But as Meghan looked at us, you could tell she was supremely irritated.

  “I need to be worked in,” she barked.

  One of the stylists took a bobby pin out of her mouth and apologized. “I’m sorry, they are all waiting.” She motioned to Willow and me, and then to Piper. There were only two hairdressers and a lot of hair.

  All of a sudden, Meghan’s face registered a wide array of emotions. In a five-second time period I saw her face go from resentment to anger to bitterness back to resentment and then—finally—to rage. However, in a display of temporary restraint, she pressed her need more urgently.

  “I just need a blowout and some makeup,” she said once again. “I’m running late.”

  “I’m sorry,” the stylist replied, saying her words carefully as she sensed the pressure rising in the room. “It’s just that they’ll be getting more airtime than you will.”

  In the chaos of a campaign trail, you rarely find silence. But there, in the hair and makeup room, we found it. For about five seconds, everyone sat slack jawed, waiting for Meghan’s response as she pondered the fact that we would be on camera more than she would. We were not disappointed.

  “If anyone had told me that I had to do my own hair and makeup,” she screamed, “I would’ve done my own f—king hair and makeup!”

  You could tell as she yelled there was something quite complex going on inside her. Or at least I liked to think so. After all, nerves were frayed and the stakes were high. Surely she wasn’t so self-obsessed that she believed everyone else should scoot over so she could take priority?

  Willow didn’t know if she should giggle or gasp at Meghan’s reaction. Britta, who was Track’s longtime girlfriend (now his fiancée), had come in to borrow some hair spray and witnessed the whole thing. After Meghan stomped out of the room, Britta pulled Piper over to the side and said, “That is not the way we’re supposed to talk or the way we should treat people. We need to be nice.”

  Piper nodded, wide-eyed and a little bit confused.

  The rest of us laughed. Not because Meghan’s behavior was actually humorous. Rather, we laughed in the way you sometimes do when you avoid a near accident on the interstate. In a way, that moment showed us what politics might do to someone after marinating in it for way too long. (Mrs. McCain was pregnant with Meghan at the 1984 GOP convention.) Or maybe we laughed because we grew up around politics, but in no way was it a defining aspect of our lives. We had faith, friends, and one another . . . hopefully that would allow us to avoid a fate of being obsessed with a political spotlight.

  Of course, it was just September. We were just getting started.

  When it came time for Mom’s big speech, we sat in a certain area reserved for the speaker’s family. It was located right in front of a bank of cameras. Also, as I looked down, I saw every single famous news reporter that I’d ever seen on television right there. You might think that it would’ve been intimidating. However, if any of the thousands of cameras filming our every move would’ve zoomed out, you would’ve seen all my aunts and uncles, all my mom’s aunt and uncles, all our cousins, and my grandparents. They were surrounding us, everyone was having the time of their lives, and it felt like nothing could go wrong when we were enveloped in such love!

  Trig sat next to Britta, Willow sat next to Mrs. McCain, Dad sat next to Piper, and I sat between Levi and my grandparents. Around us were dignitaries like Rudy Giuliani and Senator McCain’s mother. It was spectacular to be right there, to have a front-row seat to history.

  Finally, after so much anticipation, a woman’s voice introduced the “Governor of Alaska.” When she came out onstage, the crowd erupted. It took over three minutes for her to begin, as she had to wait for the noise level to subside. People were chanting her name, they were holding signs that read Palin Power, and—after a while—Dad looked at us and just started laughing about how amazing this reception was. After a long and divisive battle for Republicans to finally settle on a candidate, I think everyone was just so pleased to have a fresh face onstage. Finally, she spoke into the noise, which made people sit down and start listening. But with her first sentence, the entire hall erupted again.

  “Mr. Chairman, delegates, and fellow citizens,” she began. “I will be honored to be considered for the nomination for vice president of the United States. . . .”

  After the noise quieted down, her speech started out by describing the many qualities of Senator McCain: his military service, his integrity, and his inspirational statement that “he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war.”

  Then it was her moment to tell people who she was . . . really. She talked about Track (about to be deployed to Iraq as an infantryman in the United States Army) and my cousin (already in the Persian Gulf in the navy) and how she’d be proud to have Senator McCain leading them as commander in chief.

  She talked about the rest of us kids, by saying, “In our family, it’s two boys and three girls in between—my strong and kind-hearted daughters Bristol, Willow, and Piper.”

  At the listing of our names, the crowd applauded and the cameras showed us sitting there in a row. The cameramen couldn’t seem to find Willow, who was by Mrs. McCain. (They never were really able to tell us apart!) Piper wasn’t sure whether she should stand, but finally committed to standing up and waving at everyone. As always, her cuteness melted the hearts of the conventiongoers. I smiled, slightly horrified at being stared at by millions of people all at once, and grabbed Levi’s hand. Again, I was thankful he was with me.

  It was slightly weird to have all the eyes of the convention on us, but soon enough Mom was talking about her “perfectly beautiful baby boy named Trig.” She said that if she was elected vice president, families of special-needs children would have a friend—and an advocate—in the White House. The entire audience stood on its feet and cheered raucously. Trig, the subject of the crowd’s adoration, remained in sweet oblivious sleep through it all!

  Then she talked about the love of her life—the man sh
e’d met in high school. Dad, she said, “is a lifelong commercial fisherman, a production operator in the oil fields of Alaska’s North Slope, a proud member of the United Steel Workers’ Union, and . . . a world champion snowmachine racer.”

  When the JumboTron screens showed Dad, the entire convention center—in fact, the entire world!—got to see this “man’s man” cradling Trig in his arms. I remember thinking Dad’s amazing qualities—both his toughness and his tenderness—were well showcased in that moment. But Mom wasn’t content to let her description of him rest there. “We met in high school, and two decades and five children later . . . he’s still my guy.”

  Everyone laughed and cheered at this, and Dad—who had handed Trig off to Piper—stood up and waved enthusiastically to the crowd. They seemed to love him and couldn’t get enough of this “normal” family that was already withstanding all the criticism and seemed to be having a lot of fun anyway!

  But there was still more family to honor and brag about.

  “Among the many things I owe my parents is the simple lesson I’ve learned, that this is America and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity.”

  I think, at this point, I could imagine liberals at home watching the television screens and becoming furious. A woman? A Republican? Talking about opportunities? She’s stealing our lines! “She” is not supposed to be happening! But the conservative crowd—which knows the Republican Party is pro-women and pro-equality—stood on their feet and cheered as she acknowledged my grandparents. “I’m so proud to be the daughter of Chuck and Sally Heath.”

  Her speech was about forty-five minutes, and everyone agreed . . . it was a barn burner. About halfway through it, the cameras cut to Piper as she tried to make Trig’s hair lie down on his sleepy little head. Of course, the cameras were on us constantly, so we never knew what was being broadcast to the whole world. She definitely didn’t realize that one of the cameras had cut to her and was broadcasting live as she cradled her new brother and rubbed his head. His hair wasn’t cooperating, even after she tried to fix it, so she did what any of us would do in the privacy of our own home. She licked her hand from the middle of her palm to her fingers, and then rubbed her slobbery hand through his sweet hair. In the battle between Piper and Trig’s hair, Piper won.

  It was a very short moment of unscripted “real” behavior, and America loved it. Perhaps voters were a little sick of the political bitterness it took to get us to the two conventions or perhaps they were sick of the overly contrived staging of the two events. Whatever the reason, the video of Piper’s “hair lick” became an Internet sensation.

  It may be hard to remember what it was like back on that night in September. Since she entered the nation’s consciousness Mom’s been so mocked, idolized, and mimicked that it might be hard to remember the moment when you had no idea she was capable of sentences like:

  “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

  Or

  “. . . though both Senator Obama and Senator Biden have been going on lately about how they are always, quote, ‘fighting for you,’ let us face the matter squarely. There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you.”

  Or the ad-libbed line she blurted out when her teleprompter stopped working and she spotted a group of delegates in hockey jerseys:

  “Do you know the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? Lipstick.”

  The way a convention works is that everything builds to the crescendo of the presidential candidate taking the stage on the last day. Many people wondered how Senator McCain’s speech could top my mom’s speech, but by that time I no longer was worried. Now that my pregnancy was revealed, my mom had blown the roof off the convention center, and people seemed to genuinely love our family . . . I was having a blast! And I knew the senator would rise to the occasion, as he always did.

  After the speech, Mom couldn’t walk two feet without people stopping her. People crowded around her like she was a rock star, and she took it all in stride. As I stood back and watched people swarm her, I remember thinking, From now on, things are different. I also took a moment to remember the sometimes challenging path she took to get to that spot—how she ran for city council, for mayor, for lieutenant governor (and lost!), and then governor.

  It just seemed natural, and humbling, to see that God had taken us down that path as a family. And we were right where we needed to be.

  By her side.

  By the time the convention was over, it was obvious that something had changed. The beleaguered McCain campaign, which had fought so hard to get to that point, had been revitalized; Republicans all over America were chattering about this newcomer; and our family had come together in a beautiful moment of honor and dignity.

  Photos

  I was the first granddaughter born on my mom’s side, so all of the aunts were thrilled to have a chance to spoil me. I was born on October 18, 1990, at Valley Hospital in Palmer, Alaska.

  My middle name is Sheeran, after my maternal grandmother’s father, Grandpa Sheeran.

  This is the first surprise Aunt Molly gave me—a dog I named Indy. There would later be two other dogs named Indy!

  When I was three and Track was five, we helped my grandpa work on his antler collection—it is now three times the size.

  Holding my baby cousin Karcher in 1995.

  Willow (two), Lauden (three), and me (six) at the Bruces’. My parents had just given us “pleather pants,” and I wore mine every day.

  With Willow on a family vacation in Hawaii. The sunshine was a welcome break from Alaska’s weather.

  Aunt Molly enjoyed dressing Lauden and me in matching outfits.

  Willow (two), Lauden (three), and me (six) at the Bruces’.

  I was beyond excited the day Piper was born.

  I was thrilled to have a real-life baby to play with instead of playing pretend with my dolls. She definitely got a lot of attention!

  I fished in the Mat-Su Borough from a young age. Here I am fishing with my grandfather at Willow Creek.

  After a summer basketball camp with Coach Bradley, I enjoyed hanging out with my sisters.

  Piper and my cousin McKinley, both one, while I watched them at my grandma’s house.

  I spent my school breaks attending Coach Bradley’s basketball camp.

  I joined the football team when Track insinuated that I couldn’t handle the practices. I had to prove to him that I could!

  Posing next to fossils at my grandparents’ house. These same fossils were later inlaid in my parents’ fireplace.

  The cousins gathered at my grandparents’ house during Christmas 2004. This is a family tradition that we do every year.

  The entire family lining up for a snowmachine ride. (Courtesy of Sarah Palin)

  A photo spanning the generations, including my great-grandmother, grandmother, and sisters, celebrating our Alaskan heritage by wearing Kuspuks. (Courtesy of Sarah Palin)

  When I was a freshman, I went to a school dance with a friend.

  After my mother became governor, we posed with the newspaper the next morning. (Courtesy of Chuck Heath)

  The governor’s gala helped celebrate my mother’s gubernatorial success. She was the first woman elected governor of Alaska. (Courtesy of Chuck Heath)

  I was thirty-two weeks pregnant when I posed for this photo. (Michele Ireys Photography)

  Tripp was born on December 27, 2008. Levi went with me to Tripp’s first doctor’s appointment on December 31. A few days later we had already broken up.

  Levi and I went to a wedding bazaar to help plan our wedding, and we jumped into a photo booth.
Tripp was just a few days old. Only days after this photo was taken our relationship was over.

  I was so excited to bring Tripp home from the hospital. My family turned part of my childhood bedroom into a nursery that I shared with Tripp. Having a newborn was a lot of work, but there were so many wonderful moments like this one. I am so blessed to have him in my life.

  I was the only student to accept a diploma while wearing baby puke on my dress. Piper is dressed up in my graduation gown while I hold Tripp and McKinley looks on.