Dear Joe
A Little Love for the Scrapper from Scranton
Dear Joe,
Do you mind if I call you Joe? It lacks formality and due reverence, but you’ve never seemed like someone who cared about those things. Formality is overrated. This one’s from the heart.
If I’m being honest, Joe, you haven’t always been my flavor of the month. Over the years, I’ve profoundly disagreed with many of your positions. I also appreciate the myriad things you’ve done to make this country better for all of the people who live in it. I have never doubted for a moment that you were a true public servant. In the Frank Capra/Mr. Deeds model, you went into politics not for power or money or status, but because you felt called to serve your fellow Americans. You’re a decent father and a loving husband who never let your job prevent you from being present. No other elected official would commute to D.C. and back home every day to tuck their children into bed. It’s clear that you would never consider accepting a gilded, gaudy, flying palace, not even for a moment. Amtrak was just fine with you, even as VP.
Just as you were elected to the senate your life was inextricably altered. I cannot imagine how you kept marching bravely forward after the profundity of that loss. Yet, somehow, you found your way out of the darkness and back to the light. For your boys, who needed their father, and for your country who didn’t know yet that it needed your leadership. That loss was compounded when Beau died, yet again you rose to the occasion determined to keep doing the work. You were a champion for the Average Joe. Though you didn’t always get it right, you evolved. When you knew better, you did better. Being able to admit you were wrong is a testament to your character.
The thing about tragedy is it shapes us, the core elements of us down to the cellular level. In doing so it impacts the way in which we interact with the world. Some people become cold, hard, distant, calculating. Everything is transactional. They have nothing to give because they have no drive to give it. They can’t love because they don’t feel worthy of love. They playact at strength to conceal their vulnerability. They hurt other people because they are wounded and unhealed. Some people become warm, kind, present, empathetic. They give freely because they know what they get in return is far more powerful than what they offer. They love without condition because they know love is an infinite resource. They take care of other people because they understand what it is to need help. You are that second kind of person. You’ve shown it again and again in the ways in which you offer compassion, take the time to create real connection, and make people feel seen, heard, and valued.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
Theodore Roosevelt
I’m so sorry to hear about your diagnosis, what a gut punch when our mainstream media is picking your presidency apart like a pack of rabid vultures. Shame on them. You deserve so much better.
I wish you’d opted out of that second run, but I also understand why you didn’t. Aging bodies and brains fail us and it’s hard to be objective about our abilities when we feel like the same person we’ve always been. I wish the people around you would have done more to help you let go of the idea that only you could stop Trump.
Yet, here we are. We can’t go back. We can only march bravely forward.
Here’s the deal, Joe. Life is not measured by the final act nor by our greatest achievements. It is measured by the day to day simple gestures of kindness offered when no one is looking. It is measured by our willingness to keep fighting for what is right even when we know we might lose. It is measured by how we love and how much we are loved in return. By any measure, you’ve lived an exceptional life. You don’t have to worry about your legacy, you’ve made the world a better place by being in it. That is the greatest legacy any of us can leave.
Joe, the scrapper from Scranton, take care of you. Give yourself some of that grace you’ve given to the rest of us. We’re all out here pulling for your recovery. We’re grateful for the good things you did and we forgive the things you did that maybe weren’t as good. You did your best, and that’s all any of us can do.
“A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Forget the malarky. You done good, Joe. That’s no joke.
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Dear Margot, Thank you! Here's to all those individuals who try their best... who stumble, side-step, and finally succeed. Here's to heart-centered leaders who have a strong love of people, all people. Here's to all humans who never want to give up, but in the end, must give in; to the forces of others, to the forces of nature, and finally, to the forces of the universe. Here's to Joe.
Sending healing energy to that good man.