WE CAN’T WEAR THE GRIEF AND NOT DO THE WORK

I have told this story before, but I see it differently today, so I need to tell it again.  In 2002 approximately 8 weeks after the plane crash MAPA held its annual dinner.  The room was packed Paul and Sheila’s names were being evoked and I lost it and had to go outside.  I stood in the door and had a vision.  An honest to G-D vision, my eyes were open.  I saw two bright lights collide and become thousand of lights.  I have always interpreted that vision as just a premonition.  Because that is what happened.  Those of us who had been laying low, raising kids and depending on Paul woke the fuck up.  We went to work, Wellstone Action happened, Take Action happened.

But, now I think I was wrong.  I think that vision was much more.  I think it was more of a message.  A lot of us have treated the plane crash and its accompanying change in how we did politics as a burden, a weight to carry.  Every year we post our pictures and treat this with longing and sadness.  Its hard not to.  Many of us fell into a deep hole of depression that day and stayed there for over a year.  That brings me back to the vision.  I think the vision is about us being given something.  Given light.  Perhaps the divine light of hope and calling.  Something we did not have before that day.

So if we evoke the tragedy of that day and be Wellstone People we need to acknowledge the gift and the obligation to use it.  If I am right about my vision it also means that this is a living thing.  Wellstone politics is a living breathing force.  And I believe it holds great power if we treat it that way.