Kamala Harris (left) and Stacey Johnson-Batiste.Photo: Stacey Johnson-Batiste/ Twelve
On her recent trip to Paris, Vice PresidentKamala Harrismet with scientists at the Institut Pastuer, a laboratory where her mother, Shyamala Gopalan,conducted breast cancer researchin the 1980s.
At the institute, Harris, 57, reflected on how her mom, who died of cancer in 2009, helped advance early detection, which serves as a foundation for scientists now working to find a cure. “The breakthroughs that she was responsible for in the ’80s was the basis for a lot of great work,” she told reporters.
A close friend, Stacey Johnson-Batiste, tells PEOPLE how Gopalan’s presence lingers over the vice president and how Harris' mom’s influence shaped her worldview, her drive and determination.
“I’ve always felt a spiritual connection with people that were close to us that have passed on. I know Kamala feels that way,” says Johnson-Batiste, who’s writtenFriends from the Beginning: The Berkeley Village That Raised Kamala and Me, a memoir about her lasting friendship with Harris and the values they inherited from Gopalan, Johnson-Batiste’s parents and the beloved “aunts” and “uncles” in the progressive and engaged community of their childhood.
‘Connecting the Dots’
The book, which is out Tuesday, begins with Johnson-Batiste opening aninvitation to Washington, D.C., to witness her dear friend take the oath of office tobecome the nation’s first female, first Asian and first Black vice president.
“I was so overwhelmed with emotion and all of that, but I truly felt — and could also imagine — just up above us her mother, Shyamala; my father, Robert; our Aunt Mary and our Uncle Sherman looking down that evening and just feeling so proud and so connected,” says Johnson-Batiste, whose written account of the heightened, post-Jan. 6 security andCOVID-19precautions add a dystopian element to a joyful experience.
The matriarch of that community, Johnson-Batiste writes, was the owner of a children’s learning center Harris attended. Regina Shelton, “always Mrs. Shelton — never Regina — to Kamala, me, and the rest of the children,” and her family were a “crucial pillar holding up the foundation of our childhood.”
“I just see that Vice President Harris, my friend Kamala Harris, her past experience, her career, has really led her to this point, and there’s a lot of connecting of the dots,” Johnson-Batiste says.
Shyamala Gopalan (left), Kamala Harris.Kamala Harris/Facebook
Now a national sales manager for AT&T, Johnson-Batiste started jotting down childhood memories afterJoe Bidenselected Harris as his running matelast summer. But she says inspiration for her book really hit during the inauguration. “I wanted to immortalize these everyday people that made extraordinary impacts,” she says. “I … could not stop writing on the flight back.”
In the book, she adds, “I really hope that the reader gets a good sense of sisterhood, of friendship, maybe a little glimpse into Berkeley, what it would is like back then … I want people to really see her. She is an amazing person. A very well-rounded, grounded person.”
‘Just Being Together’
In 1994, Johnson-Batiste, her then-husband, Patrick Batiste, and their children Lauren and Patrick Jr. moved into the ninth floor of the same building on Lakeside Drive in Oakland, California, where her childhood friend, the future vice president, lived in her own “fabulous condo.”
“It was a spectacular time in our lives,” Johnson-Batiste writes. “We were both active and busy and flush with all the excitement of that early adult independence. As a priceless bonus, I never felt alone, for though Kamala and I were carving out very different life paths for ourselves, on any given evening I would just pop own to her condo carrying a glass of wine to chat with her and catch up.”
The memories of “one of the happiest and most memorable spans of my life” sound a lot like Johnson-Batiste’s answer when asked what she’d like to do in the (purely hypothetical) event that the vice president has a day off to spend a friend she hasn’t seen since the whirlwind inauguration 10 months ago.
“I would want to have a nice dinner, share some wine and catch up, maybe reminisce, flip through some old photos,” Johnson-Batiste says. “We just enjoyed the simple things. So, just being together.”
Kamala Harris in 1997.Mary F. Calvert/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images
If there is any difficulty in adjusting to the space that inevitably grows wider between friends when one’s political career goes from being district attorney of San Francisco to attorney general of California, then U.S. senator and vice president — withall the attendant scrutinyand occasional controversy — Johnson-Batiste doesn’t admit it.
Instead, she says with simple acceptance and apparent pride that they are always “connected in spirit.”
Still, to reach her friend now, Johnson-Batiste can only send messages through a contact Harris gave her before she turned over her personal phone. A manuscript for her book, she says, was sent to the White House but she’s not sure Harris has had a chance to read it.
“She did surprise me with a phone call last Tuesday,” Johnson-Batiste mentions casually during her PEOPLE interview. “She just missed me and just wanted to chat. She had a few minutes in between meetings.”
Pushed for a bit more on their recent conversation, Johnson-Batiste describes a surprise call from the vice president like it’s no big deal.
“It was just girlfriends catching up,” she says. “We still talk to each other as we’ve always done. She’s concerned about how I’m doing. What I’m doing, how my kids and my mother are — things of that sort. I shared with her that I recently moved. We are the same friends that we’ve always been.”
‘The Perfect Compliment’
Johnson-Batiste said there might be a time next year when she’s able to visit Washington and see her friend.
From left: Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Vice President Kamala Harris.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“He absolutely adores her. He wants to protect her. He’s very supportive of her career. And I think that he is the perfect compliment to her in that he understands her and the role that she has,” Johnson-Batiste says, adding that Harris, Emhoff and his adult children,ColeandElla, are a “beautiful family.”
“They just fit together very, very nicely,” she says of her friend’s family life which serves as a “comfortable, safe, grounding” home the vice president can return to after representing her country and the Biden administration on ahigh-profile trip to Paris.
source: people.com
