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The next day, I sneaked into Philadelphia so I could make a surprise appearance with President Obama after his speech. He was masterful, of course, and incredibly generous. He talked about what it takes to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office and make life-and-death decisions that affect the whole world, and how I’d been there with him, helping make those hard choices. He looked up at where Bill was sitting and said with a smile, “There has never been a man or a woman—not me, not Bill, nobody—more qualified.” Bill loved it and jumped to his feet and applauded. When Barack finished, I popped out from backstage and gave him a big hug.

Then, on the final day of the convention, it was time for me to give the most important speech of my life. In some ways, this was easier than that night at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I was ready to be the party’s standard-bearer in the battle to come, and I was confident in the vision I wanted to share with the country. I would argue that Americans are always “stronger together,” and that if we worked together, we could rise together. We could live up to our country’s motto, e pluribus unum: “out of many, we are one.” Trump, by contrast, would tear us apart.

We had settled on Stronger Together as our theme for the general election after a lot of thought and discussion. Remarkably, three separate brainstorming processes all led to the same answer. My team in Brooklyn had started with three basic contrasts we wanted to draw with Trump. He was risky and unqualified, but I was steady and ready to deliver results on Day One. He was a fraud who was in it only for himself, but I was in it for children and families and would make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. He was divisive, while I would work to bring the country together. The challenge was to find a way to marry all three together in a memorable slogan that reflected my values and record. Stronger Together did that better than anything else we could think of.

While the team in Brooklyn worked on this, I asked Roy Spence to spend some time thinking outside the box about campaign themes and messages. Roy is an old friend from the McGovern campaign who started a large ad agency in Austin, Texas. When Jake Sullivan and Dan Schwerin, my director of speechwriting, got on the phone with Roy to exchange notes, they were shocked to hear him propose exactly the same phrase the team in Brooklyn had come up with: Stronger Together. Our top political consultants, Joel Benenson, Mandy Grunwald, and Jim Margolis, also reached the same conclusion independently. Considering how rarely all these smart people agreed on anything, we took it as a sign. Stronger Together it would be.

By the time I got to our convention, I felt even better about this decision. Trump’s “I Alone Can Fix It” speech in Cleveland had provided the perfect foil. The history surrounding us in Philadelphia offered further inspiration. Independence Hall was just a few blocks from our hotel. It was there, 240 years before, that representatives from thirteen unruly colonies transformed themselves into a single, unified nation. It wasn’t easy. Some of the colonists wanted to stick with the King. Some wanted to stick it to the King and go their own way. They had different backgrounds, interests, and aspirations. Somehow they began listening to one another and compromising, and eventually found common purpose. They realized they’d be stronger together than they ever could be on their own.

On Thursday, the last day of the convention, Bill and I sat around the dining room table in our suite at the Logan Hotel, going over a draft of my speech, trying to get it just right. I tried not to think about how many millions of people would be watching and how enormous the stakes would be. Instead, I focused on trying to make my argument as clear and compelling as possible. If I did a good job, and the country saw me without all the usual nonsense getting in the way, the rest would take care of itself. Suddenly, with a squeal of delight, our granddaughter, Charlotte, burst into the room and ran over to us. I put down the draft and chased after her, finally scooping her up in my arms and giving her a kiss. Any tension I’d been feeling drained away in a flash. There was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be other than right there, holding my granddaughter.

After a few more hours of tweaking and practicing, I put on another suffragette-white pantsuit and got ready to head to the arena. The television was still on, and just before I walked out the door, I saw Khizr and Ghazala Khan come to the podium. I had first heard about the Khans the previous December, when an intern on my speechwriting team came across the story of their son, Humayun, a heroic captain in the U.S. military who was killed protecting his unit in Iraq. I talked about Captain Khan in a speech in Minneapolis about counterterrorism and the importance of working with American Muslims, not demonizing them. My team followed up with the family and invited them to share their experiences at the convention.

None of us were prepared for how powerful it would be. Mr. Khan solemnly offered to lend Donald Trump his copy of the Constitution that he kept in his pocket. It instantly became one of the most iconic moments of the whole election. Like millions of others, I was transfixed. Watching Mr. and Mrs. Khan up there, still grieving, incredibly dignified, patriotic to the core, filled me with a rush of pride and confidence in our party and our country.

Then I had to hurry to the arena. We had NPR on the whole way so I didn’t miss a minute.

I watched backstage as Chelsea gave a perfect introduction that brought me to tears.

“My parents raised me to know how lucky I was that I never had to worry about food on the table,” she said. “I never had to worry about a good school to go to. That I never had to worry about a safe neighborhood to play in. And they taught me to care about what happens in our world and to do whatever I could to change what frustrated me, what felt wrong. They taught me that’s the responsibility that comes with being smiled on by fate.”

“I know my kids are a little young,” she continued, “but I’m already trying to instill those same values in them.”

Chelsea finished her remarks and introduced a film about my life by Shonda Rhimes. I love how Shonda makes tough, smart female characters come alive on television, and I was hoping she could do the same for me. Boy, did she deliver. Her film was funny, poignant, just perfect. When it was over, Chelsea came back on and welcomed me—“my mother, my hero”—to the stage. There was a deafening roar.

Looking out into that arena full of cheers and banners and music, with thousands of excited people and millions more at home, was one of the proudest and most overwhelming moments of my life.

“Standing here as my mother’s daughter, and my daughter’s mother, I’m so happy this day has come,” I said. “Happy for grandmothers and little girls and everyone in between. Happy for boys and men, too—because when any barrier falls in America, for anyone, it clears the way for everyone. When there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit.”