By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s wife Cindy McCain recalled with pride their South Asian connection as she introduced their seven children, including a Bangladeshi girl she brought home from an orphanage begun by Mother Teresa.
“I would like to introduce you the seven reasons that John and I are so happy as a family,” she said as she warmed up the Republican convention crowd at St. Paul, Minnesota, for her husband’s acceptance speech Thursday.
“John and I are so pleased and so happy to have them here with us tonight. Nothing has made me happier or more fulfilled in my life than being a mother,” said Cindy McCain, introducing adopted daughter Bridget and the six other children standing on the stage.
Her father, she said, “taught me life is not just about you, it’s also about nurturing the next generation, preparing a better world for all of our children and helping them find the right way up”.
“We all come to that knowledge in different ways. For me, the great moment of clarity was when I became a mother. Something changed in me. I would never see my obligations the same way again,” she added.
“It was after that I was walking through the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, surrounded by terrible poverty and the devastation of a cyclone. All around me were the children and the desperate faces of their mothers. The pain was overwhelming, and I felt helpless.
“But then I visited an orphanage begun by Mother Teresa, and two very sick little girls captured my heart. There was something I could do. I could take them home and so I did.
“Today, both of those little girls are healthy and happy. And one of them you just met tonight: our beautiful daughter, Bridget,” Cindy McCain said.