As a writer, there are times when I read something and think, “Wow, that’s good, this cat has chops.” Very rarely do I read something new that I didn’t know was possible. Ben Sasse, he just wrote one.
The former Republican senator from Nebraska informed the nation that he has stage four cancer and will die soon.
“Advanced pancreas is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence,” he wrote. “But I also received a death sentence last week, we all have that.”
It may seem trivial or even cruel to think about Sasse’s written words when we know the pain he and his family must be feeling, but to me it is not trivial, and never has been in human history.
DR. MARC SIEGEL: MY PERSONAL MIRACLE: A PHYSICIAN’S LESSONS IN FAITH AND HEALING
Shakespeare called death the undiscovered land, but Sasse preferred to focus on what we know, writing, “To be clear, optimism is wonderful, and it is absolutely necessary, but it is insufficient. Telling your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle isn’t the kind of thing that will last. And don’t tell your mother and father that they are going to bury their son.’
Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) speaks during a Senate Finance Committee hearing for Janet L. Yellen, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, on January 19, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker-Pool/Getty Images)
“A little,” as a writer, this casual usage that my editors often change when I use it is the epitome of what Sasse has accomplished here. His words make me think that beauty always portends tragedy, but that’s okay. To invoke a New Yorkism: it is what it is.
Sasse, who until last year became president of the University of Florida from the Senate, goes on to say, “A life well lived requires more reality – stiffer things. That is why during Advent, even while we still walk in the dark, we shout out our hope – often rightly in a hoarse voice struggling through the tears.”
SADNESS, GRATITUDE, AND GOD: A HOLIDAY MESSAGE FOR THOSE WITH HEAVY HEARTS
Except for a few modern references, Sasse’s letter to our nation would have been perfectly understood 2,500 years ago in Athens, where such writing on the exploration of the human condition was born.
Sasse tells us, “Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what is to come does not ease the pain of present suffering. But it does put it into the perspective of eternity:
“If we have been there for ten thousand years… we have no fewer days to sing God’s praises.”
GARY SINISE FINDS HEALING IN HIS LAST SON’S MUSIC, SAYS HE LEAVES BEHIND A ‘TREASURY’ FULL OF SIGNS
Perhaps what is most striking about this incredible piece is that it is not performative at all, in a time when everything is. In law, a declaration of dying has special weight. In Sasse’s pen it holds our hearts.
Shakespeare had an interesting term for death. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
Much of the great work of our language involves death, with Dylan Thomas imploring his father in poetry, “Do not go gently into the good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
JANE GOODALL’S SURPRISING LESSON ABOUT DEATH CHANGED HOW THIS RETIRED PASTOR VIEWS LIFE
As I read his profound letter to us, I couldn’t help but see the image of Sasse in his running gear, hunched over a stone wall in the Capitol, dismembering it along with Schumer and McCain. Just an ordinary guy, one of us.
When I read his words about his own mortality, I see that he is much more than that. I spend almost all my waking hours reading, when I’m not writing. At the age of fifty, little surprises me. This did it.
My mother died of fucking cancer when I was 24. Her final request of me was to write and deliver her eulogy, and I’ll be honest, the request felt too heavy. But when she died, I had a job to do, and for two days I did nothing but write. It was her last gift, she knew me and she helped me through it.
Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse is looking for answers after an illegal immigrant was not apprehended by ICE following a deadly crash. (AP)
I am so grateful for Sasse’s words, and that at a time when everything is so ugly, he took the opportunity of personal disgust to get us into trouble. His great-great-grandchildren will know it and feel justifiable pride.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
God bless Ben Sasse and his family, and may his profound and beautiful words resonate through the ages as the epitome of grace in a falling world.
As a writer, I want to say: Thank you, Senator. I know it must seem completely insignificant right now, but there is a writer in West Virginia today who will be forever changed by those words, and I am grateful for it.
