To the editor:

Looking outside today, I see a bright white winter day of hope. As Joe Biden said on the eve of his inauguration, while he was honoring and remembering the unimaginable number of people lost to COVID, “To heal, we must remember. It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation. That’s why we are here today.”

We must remember and then try to heal from the last four years when many objectionable acts were committed by the outgoing president. The latest of these were failing to enact a coherent coronavirus plan, leading to over 400,000 deaths, and the encouragement of insurrection against the Capitol to stop a free and fair election. We must also remember that Elise Stefanik is complicit in the attack on the Capitol and our Constitution due to continually repeating the lies that the election was not legitimate and by objecting to the counting of electors. These things are a dark stain on our country and will take years to recover from. We will never make up for the huge loss of life. We must not forget.

Watching the inauguration, however, gives us many signs that we can and will recover from this deeply disturbing time for our United States of America. We will have the leadership of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to start to mitigate the effects of the desperate pandemic that has devastated our population. They will begin to rebuild our global alliances, will rejoin the Paris climate accord, will restore civility in government and will set an example for all citizens. We have the first woman and woman of color as our vice president. That is huge. We, the citizens, now have to unite to overcome the grave threats of the pandemic and climate change, to restore civil discourse and to work toward greater equality. We have much to do, but together we can do it. We should have hope for a better future.

Margie Gallagher

Lake Placid