I originally wrote the first part of this to a friend almost four years ago partly about facing the trauma of sexual assault during (now) Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. On the two year anniversary of the onset of the pandemic and with the atrocity in Ukraine, I wanted to revisit the idea of heroic sacrifice, because while this was to one person, it is in a sense universal, and there are “everyday heroes” in all walks of life that are sometimes asked to act heroically without recognition.
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I could not sleep last night thinking about your question “Would I ask you to do what Dr. Ford is doing?” I said earlier I didn’t have words to respond. A sleepless night brought them to me.
The truth is I recognize I have no right to ask you to do it. We both know that the cost to you and your loved ones would be high, perhaps impossibly high. And we know that there are clearly others who’ve got similar experiences who have decided not to come forward, or chose to speak only anonymously. But I don’t think those people are as strong and mature as you are.
Over your career as a professional, woman, mother, and citizen, you’ve grown strong, and your view of your obligations to the world around you has expanded. It’s my sense that you would find it your duty to your family, the country, yourself and those you marched with 18 months ago to come forward.
You’d do it — reluctantly — though you know that you’d be making a sacrifice in lost privacy, added stress, public reputation, family dissension, time, money and possibly longevity. You’d do this to set an example to those you love, and possibly to protect them from someone you know can cause harm. You might do it as a warning to others that would do similar things to young women like your daughters.
And of course, you’d be terrified to do this, as was Anita Hill; as is Dr. Ford. But you’d do it anyway.
And in answering this call to civic duty, you’d make these sacrifices knowing that you are right and truthful, though many people will think you a liar and worse. And you would remember that there are heros who make sacrifices in all walks of life, often underappreciated or unrecognized, setting an unrecognized personal example.
I could be wrong of course, but I have a very high opinion of you. I think you would live up to the courage of your convictions, and you would be further transformed into an even stronger, even more noble role model for those you love than you are now.
Four years later, we see that this is emphatically true, and that the characteristics are widely held among “ordinary” people. I’m sure you know many that fit this characterization, though you recognize this nature in them more than yourself.
If you were born in Ukraine [or Syria, or Eritrea, or Yemen or … ], would you staff a field hospital, caring for both combatants and bystanders, regardless of affiliation? Everyone who knows you knows you would do so, and in turn, you know many who would. You — and they — would do so from a sense of duty, knowing you are at existential risk, because the aggressor has a history of deliberately targeting hospitals.
If you lived in Russia, would you protest the war in the streets, knowing that you would certainly be arrested and faced ten years in jail, as 20,000 others have done? Perhaps not today, because you have a responsibility to care for your children, but in a few years, when you were freer and inevitably stronger, I could see you doing that.
What would you do if you were a health professional and perhaps the world’s worst health crisis in a century afflicted the planet? Would you work tirelessly, literally for years, at great personal sacrifice, comforting those dying alone, because you felt it your civic, professional and compassionate duty to your fellow humans, though it placed a huge stress on your family without expectation of acknowledgement? There is of course no question here. [And I apologize that I have not more expressly thanked you for that sacrifice over the last two years.]
It is the “ordinary” people who meet “unimaginable” extraordinary challenges that both inspire and define humanity. In this context however, I find the word “ordinary” risible, because “ordinary” people are routinely the heroes of society. They are teachers, nurses, dock workers, emergency responders and former comedians, who at heart-wrenching risk and sacrifice meet the extraordinary challenges the world sometimes presents. They — and you — meet those challenges with unimagined strength, become stronger for it and perform without expectation of recognition.
Never doubt that you are one of those people with extraordinary strength, and don’t be afraid to lean into that strength — using muscles makes them grow stronger, though you are temporarily exhausted. You’ve demonstrated this many times, and will again as the extraordinary need arises, I am sure — as have many whose names we will never know. Your — and their — strength is inspirational.
Brothers in Arms across many battlefields