By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Mr. President, I am not going to flood your Twitter account with messages like this one, but I do feel the need to send you a direct message of thanks.

I occasionally would type out these missives to your predecessor. He got them, or his staff got them, and likely ignored them. Just tossed ’em in the cyber-trash can.

I heard your speech the other night from the White House and I just want to express my thanks and appreciation for the return of empathy and compassion in our head of state. We’ve all been missing that in the presidency for the past four years, as you no doubt are aware. Indeed, I heard your allusion to the absence of it in your remarks.

We need to hear these kinds of remarks from our president. You know how it goes. You served with a president, Barack Obama, who became a master of comforting a nation in pain. His predecessor, George W. Bush, managed to rally us after that terrible day on 9/11. President Bill Clinton, too, was good at trying to heal a nation grieving over tragic loss. But you know all of that, yes?

The pain we feel today is real and it is lingering. The pandemic is still with us, as you know. Yet you offered some realistic words of optimism, not the shallow happy talk based on nothing but a presidential “hunch” that we got from your immediate predecessor.

I’ll end this note now. Thanks once again for talking to us in a tone of voice that tells me that you actually do care about the people you were elected to lead … and to comfort.