~a column by Colleen O’Brien
A friend wrote to me her sadness at the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, calling her a female “Charles Atlas, feminism on her tiny shoulders.”
What a forcefully expressive definition of a remarkable woman’s life.
I’m saddened at RBG’s dying; sad for her, for her family, her friends, her colleagues on the Court, the millions of women she’s taken into account in her career of speaking up for them and making decisions on points of law that have helped equalize them with the other gender.
During these bereft days after her death, it’s been gratifying to read reams on a good person. I have been buoyed by not being bombarded with “breaking news” – what an inapt phrase that is – there’s nothing new about the daily greed, pandering, mean-spiritedness, name-calling, manipulation, self-adulation, fourth-grade vocabulary, duplicity…. Lord, I’m writing a dictionary about her exact opposite in character (well, it’s more a case of her having character).
There are as many apt words to define her– kind, thoughtful, brilliant, generous, funny, even-handed, loving, calm, unafraid of just about anything life threw at her. These are words precisely antithetical to the ones I used to define a type who is 180-degree opposite.
The most fearful thing we face in today’s world is the lies. I see no hint that RBG ever reduced herself to falsehoods. Her every day is an example of how to get things done in a decent way. Telling the truth about injustice, resolute in her decades-long battles in changing opinion regarding inequalities – RGB’s long life is such an inspirational example of how to be successful without prevarication or self-promotion.
The fact of her death will not recede soon. We’re careening toward a serious juncture in America. For the rest of our lives, we may regret our tiny champion having to leave us too soon. As the political crisis accelerates during the next five weeks, she’ll be on our minds, for – we are already contemplating injustice being given free rein again: rules and regulations to halt climate change taken off the books; medical care reduced even further to only those who can pay for it; law and order not for the legal protestors, only for right wing instigators who are locked and loaded; banks looking forward to deregulation again; the wealthy cheering new laws allowing more money in politics; religions imposing their beliefs on our life decisions as we watch the rights of women going down the drain.
All I can say is thank you, giant woman, You of all people will be resting in peace. We are better off because of you; and may we borrow your courage to rise to do better, too, so we don’t lose what you won for us.
