Of all the horrors that the 43rd president brought to my country and the world, there was one that made me sick to my stomach every time I thought of it: America's use of torture against its prisoners.

I could not square that with everything I'd been taught to believe about my country. "No," I'd say to myself, "torture is used by governments in countries ruled by brutal dictators, or in lawless lands where violent mobs terrorize the people. Not in democracies. Certainly not in the democratic country in which I was born and live. How could torture not only be tolerated but approved by the president himself? This is unimaginable."

Well, the photos that came out of Abu Ghraib showed us the truth. The few photos that came out of Guantanamo, images of men and boys being held out in the open in cages like animals, made it all too clear. And then our president finally admitted it. Not only admitted to approving torture--only he wouldn't call it that--but used men like John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales to justify it, to say the Geneva Convention was outdated, that it no longer applied to what they called the "war on terror."

So when I read today (Thursday) that our new president had signed his first executive orders and that they outlawed the use of torture by American interrogators, and ordered Guantanamo and CIA secret prisons to be closed, I burst into tears. Tears that have been waiting to be shed for years. Tears of relief. Tears of gratitude. Tears that say, "President Obama, you are restoring our nation's soul. Bless you for that."

May we never again become the monsters we were from 2001-2008. May we reclaim the ideals upon which our country was founded. May we again become respected and respectful members of the global community. And may our new president, Barack Obama, be given the wisdom, courage and hope he needs to lead us into this new brighter future.