I work for a hospice organization, treating the pain of people with terminal illnesses. And though one of my longer-term patients died this morning, I don't feel sad. Let me tell you why.
J.R. was an older musician and luthier who still kept his grey ponytail long and was never without his faded Levis. He had lung cancer, though he continued to smoke his handrolled cigarettes to the end; in the final month he was smoking slightly more cannabis than tobacco.
For awhile, every time I visited him, he was watching Democracy Now. Personally, I can't stand the program, since Amy Goodman's purpose in life seems to be to suck all hope out of our lives and replace it with world-weary pessimism. But J.R. liked her just fine. We spoke about the election. J.R. had no doubts about the outcome: Obama was going to lose. He was going to lose, because They weren't going to let him win. It was all rigged. The corporations, the GOP: they pulled the strings, and there was no way they'd let it happen. And if Obama did look like he was going to win, well, They's shoot him, and that would be that.
There's not much headway you can make with an argument like that. Since I was there to ease J.R.'s pain, I quickly gave up on trying to persuade him that no, Obama was smarter and cannier than the Forces of Evil, and he was going to destroy the GOP's grip on this country for a generation. I listened, but I didn't say much.
As the weeks wore on, and J.R. got sicker, and it got closer to the election, I noticed that Amy Goodman's voice was no longer speaking in the background. J.R. had moved on to calm, spiritual music instead. He was waiting to die. He had said goodbye to everyone, and now was preparing himself for his next phase.
I told him he could vote early, by mail, and he ordered a ballot. He still seemed skeptical, but less so. We talked a little politics, and now J.R. was focussed on how marvelous Obama was. The speech he gave in Ohio - the "closing argument" - was one of the best he'd heard all year, he said.
The last time I saw him, he seemed a bit upset. He was feeling lousy, and felt that his time was up, but he was still around. "I could have gone happily a few weeks ago," he said. I said maybe his body was sticking around to allow him to vote. "That sounds about right," he said. I told him he might be staying around until it looked like the election was pretty much in the bag. He smiled.
So this morning, the day before the election, with polls high, enthusiasm higher, and an unmistakable feeling in the air, J.R. finally let go of his body. He got to cast his ballot for someone he finally believed in, someone who could actually win. And I like to think, at the end, he finally believed it.
So go out there and let's finish this thing right.
Volunteer, donate, and give it all you've got because people on this world, and the next, are counting on all of us to save our country, planet, and the future of our children, and Barack Obama is our man to get us on the right path.
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And to free your minds so your assess will follow and get us to victory, some music from the Hip-Hop Community on the Hope tip.