Issue date: May 2, 1999
Fourteen months after the death of entertainer-turned-politician
Sonny Bono, his widow, Mary, has settled into his seat in Congress.
It's a role the 37-year-old mother of two never expected to play.
Rather, she had planned to get into the restaurant business after
she graduated from college with a degree in Art History. She met
Sonny and life took a different turn. And so it did again with his
fatal skiing accident.
After a flurry of phone
calls to her aides to find a time that would work for a phone conversation,
I managed a talk with the California Republican while she was being
driven to pick up her kids at the elementary school they attend
in Palm Springs. Earlier that morning she'd flown home for the weekend.
She put the phone down for a moment when she arrived at school and
I heard squeals of delight at their reunion. Excerpts from our talk:
How
are you managing to work in Congress and have a life with your kids?
It's a pretty delicate balance. I couldn't do it without the help
of family and friends. The worst part for me is the commute -- the
amount of time spent on airplanes. But I'm getting used to it. I
use airplane time to sleep or work or a little bit of both.
Is
being a member of Congress different than being the spouse of a
congressman? Is there any one thing that stands out as surprising?
It's about what I expected, nothing's worse, nothing's easier. One
thing that's surprising, I really enjoy and appreciate the comraderie
of my colleages. At a time when you hear a lot about the divisiveness
in Congress, I don't see that.
Do
you ever think about how Sonny would have voted? Ever talk to him
in your head? I don't think of how he would've voted
because generally the way I tend to work through the issues is my
staff comes in and we banter it around. I don't tend to think of
how Sonny would feel or what he would or do because, in all honesty,
you couldn't predict Sonny. How he would be on an issue would surprise
you. So to do that wouldn't be right, it wouldn't be fair. When
I do talk to him in my head, as you say, is when it's hard, when
I need strength, wondering how he'd handle a certain situation.
It's more personal it's more coping ...when I think of him. I don't
think many of us know or understand how a relationship is, or how
we get our strength, until they're gone. So much of who they are
stays with you but you don't realize it till it's gone. I know in
Sonny's case with me, he taught me so much, he gave me so much I'll
have for the rest of my life. I didn't know those things were neccesarily
in me while he was alive. I didn't know. I've had to tap into this
reservoir that he created of strength and certain beliefs that he
gave me.
At
one point you said you'd do this job one term at a time. Do you
still feel that way? Well, I'm one term ahead of myself
at a time. I know now I'm committed to run again for reelection.
I can gauge that much of my future But I'm open-minded about my
future and I think in politics it's a constantly changing landscape.
As a woman and as a mother I don't know where my challenges will
be 4 years from now and 5 years from now. I realy enjoy being a
congresswoman. It's rewarding for me. I hope to stay in it, I enjoy
it. Sometimes the sacrifices are large but worth it.
It's
a working mother's dilemma, that sacrifices must be made, right?
When Sonny passed away it wasn't my decision anymore that sacrifices
were going to have to be made. We find ways to make things work
but it may not look perfect on paper. That's true across the board
for working mothers.
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