I AM WITH YOU. I LOVE YOU. LEAD
ON!
 Dearly
Beloved:
Listen to the heart of this old soldier. As with all of us the
time comes when body and mind are battered and weary. But I do not
go quietly into the night. I do not give up struggling to be a responsible
contributor to the sacred continuum of human life. I do not give
up struggling to overcome my weakness, to conform my life - and
that part of my life called death - to the great values of the human
dream.
Death is not a tragedy. It is not an evil from which we must escape.
Death is as natural as birth. Like childbirth, death is often a
time of fear and pain, but also of profound beauty, of celebration
of the mystery and majesty which is life pushing its horizons toward
oneness with the truth of mother universe. The days of dying carry
a special responsibility. There is a great potential to communicate
values in a uniquely powerful way - the person who dies demonstrating
for civil rights.
Let my final actions thunder of love, solidarity, protest - of
empowerment.
I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the
world, a culture which has the obvious potential to create a golden
age of science and democracy dedicated to maximizing the quality
of life of every person, but which still squanders the majority
of its human and physical capital on modern versions of primitive
symbols of power and prestige.
I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the
world which still incarcerates millions of humans with and without
disabilities in barbaric institutions, backrooms and worse, windowless
cells of oppressive perceptions, for the lack of the most elementary
empowerment supports.
I call for solidarity among all who love justice, all who love
life, to create a revolution that will empower every single human
being to govern his or her life, to govern the society and to be
fully productive of life quality for self and for all.
I do so love all the patriots of this and every nation who have
fought and sacrificed to bring us to the threshold of this beautiful
human dream. I do so love America the beautiful and our wild, creative,
beautiful people. I do so love you, my beautiful colleagues in the
disability and civil rights movement.
My relationship with Yoshiko Dart includes, but also transcends,
love as the word is normally defined. She is my wife, my partner,
my mentor, my leader and my inspiration to believe that the human
dream can live. She is the greatest human being I ever known.
Yoshiko, beloved colleagues, I am the luckiest man in the world
to have been associated with you. Thanks to you, I die free. Thanks
to you, I die in the joy of struggle. Thanks to you, I die in the
beautiful belief that the revolution of empowerment will go on.
I love you so much. I'm with you always. Lead on! Lead on!
Justin Dart |
