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Dear neighbor,
I’m so grateful for the vaccines and boosters that make it possible for me to spend time with family and chosen family this week — I hope you are able to spend time with yours as well.
Spending time with my friend Ady Barkan this past weekend (and his remarkable wife Rachael, and smart and rambunctious 5-year-old Carl and 2-year-old Willow) was profound preparation for Thanksgiving: what we have to be grateful for – and what the obligations of that gratitude are.
Ady was diagnosed with ALS five years ago, and given a life expectancy of 3-5 years, during which time he’d lose the use of his body, stop being able to speak, breathe, and eat. But rather than succumb to very understandable despair, through a level of courage that surpasses understanding, and some witty sarcasm too, he found renewed life-giving purpose in some of the most powerful activism.
But Ady will be the very first to tell you that his story is not just about his courage. As he wrote in the New York Times [[link removed]] this fall, home care keeps him alive. He relies on expensive medical technology, and especially on 24-hour-care from great care-workers.
Ady’s not just thankful for it. He has dedicated himself to fighting like hell, together with others, to honor it. He’s founded a national organization, Be A Hero [[link removed]] , to fight together for healthcare justice. That means making sure everyone has access to the care they need – and that care workers have the decent pay, protections, and dignity that they need.
Be A Hero’s been a big part of the fight to expand home care in the Build Back Better Act, and it was pretty wonderful to be with him when the House of Representatives passed a version of the bill that includes it ( not nearly enough [[link removed]] , as he pointed out to me, just a 6% increase, less than half of what Biden originally proposed and not enough for people to count on the level of care that Ady needs, but still by-far the biggest expansion in decades).
The Build Back Better Act has to get through the Senate and to the President's desk next. Join me and Ady in making a call now to ensure home care stays in the package [[link removed]] .
Being friends with Ady (his son Carl asked me on Sunday: “ Are you and Sarah friends with Abba [dad]? I thought only kids have friends .”) has changed how I think about gratitude, and of course about courage.
But especially about solidarity – that it’s not just a kind of obligation, something we owe to each other, but that it’s how we each transcend individual limitations and transform ourselves into something profoundly beautiful, what Rebecca Solnit calls “ the great contemporary task of being human [[link removed]] .”
Over the past twelve years, I’ve had the good fortune to work with so many of you in efforts large and small – from mutual aid work after disasters to legislation for essential workers – to reach for that kind of solidarity.
This Thanksgiving, it’s what I remain immensely grateful for.
Brad
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