Remembering Sheila and Paul Wellstone

A speech by Mark Ritchie
Given at the "Gathering of Remembrance,” October 25, 2007

Five years ago I was down in Kentucky just about to begin a speech on the importance of family farms when a young woman approached me in tears. She told me that she knew I was from Minnesota because she was working at the front desk at the hotel and that she had just heard the terrible news that a plane carrying Senator Wellstone had crashed.  As the shock swept over me she began to tell me this incredible story about how Paul had directly touched her life.

It turns out that a few years earlier Sheila and Paul had come to eastern Kentucky, where Sheila was born and raised, to hold a hearing on mine safety.  She said that her father and brother worked in the coal mines and that she knew they were now safer because of this hearing. She thanked me for being from a state that sent someone like Paul to Washington –someone who cared about the lives and well-being of workers and their families.

As I look around this room tonight I am reminded of that coal miner’s daughter – who had been so moved that she came to find me on that terrible morning.  All of us here, and millions more across this country and around the world, were touched by Paul and Sheila.  First by their lives – by what they were able to accomplish.  And then by their deaths – a tragedy that challenged all of us to examine our own lives. 

While Paul and Sheila accomplished many things on their most remarkable legacy is how their work has been multiplied thousands of times over through the lives of all of us here tonight - and thousands more.  By inspiring us their work goes on.
Sheila and Paul inspired people by caring. They inspired people by joining in their struggles. They inspired people by sharing their joys and sorrows. They gave us the gift of hope.  They inspired us to live our lives in service to each other and to creation.

Sheila and Paul lived their lives according to their core values.  They believed in the dignity and human rights of every single person. They believed that they were on this planet to make it a better place.  They believed in the power of love to bring healing to individuals, communities, and to this fragile planet. 

They rarely gave a speech without talking about their love for their parents, their children, and each other. They shared a love for our country so powerful no one could miss it. They saw love as the path to change and showed this love in ways that transformed us all.

I worked most closely with Paul to make the world a better place for family farmers and rural communities.  We met in the early 1980s, when the economic challenges facing Greater Minnesota had become a full-blown disaster. Paul was always there working to help individuals and their families facing a tough situation, like a foreclosure or a suicide. But Paul also knew that we needed changes in the state and federal laws that were creating this crisis for individuals – including disastrous trade policies, predatory lending practices, and government-set low prices. He was able to hold within his worldview this need for both individual action and social action and he was brilliant in finding ways to link these together.  Paul was always in hurry but he never lost track of where he was going or what was most important, like spending time with family and friends.

Some of you remember the pure elation of the night when Paul was first elected. His success had special meaning to many of us who worked on his campaign as our first real dive into electoral politics. The fact that he was able to run a political campaign true to his values and win was a watershed moment.  If someone that honest, caring and committed could run and win then it meant that others could do the same.

My main connection with Sheila was through her work to end domestic violence, where she had the same capacity to express compassion at the individual level while working tirelessly to address the underlying causes.  Healing through the power of love was at the core of her political and personal life.  She traveled all over the country talking about self-empowerment, transformation, and the role of social action in the process of healing.  She campaigned day and night to pass important state and federal legislation to protect victims and to end the cycle of violence.

I remember one time when Sheila pulled me aside to talk about the exciting changes taking place at Harriet Tubman – the largest shelter for victims of domestic abuse in the Twin Cities. They had moved their safe house for women fleeing dangerous situations out of the secret location where they had been located into a great big new center right in my neighborhood in South Minneapolis.  She saw this as a way to go from healing at the individual level to helping the whole community heal by sparking discussion and awareness.

While I knew some things about Harriet Tubman because our daughter Rachel worked there as a summer intern through our church, Sheila put this new development into a whole new context for me – helping me see how this was a way to heal through the power of love at the community level.  I should add that I am very proud that we in the Office of the Secretary of State,  have finally taken another step down this path that Sheila helped create here in Minnesota with the opening of our new address confidentially program, called Safe at Home. 

The personal was the political to Sheila and Paul and the political was as personal as you can get.  One of the ways they showed this most powerfully was in their profound love for each other. It was this love for each other that gave the special energy to their work in the world. It was this love that was their guidepost for living lives in balance between the personal and political.  

Tragic as it was, their death did not end the role of Paul and Sheila in shaping the political and policy landscape of this state, this nation, this planet.  Perhaps nothing better illustrates this than the very encouraging success that has come in the last few months on something that Paul and Sheila put at the center of their political visions – mental health parity legislation. Paul was especially sensitive to this issue in part because his own brother suffered from mental illness. 

This is an important example for us to pay attention to today because it was Paul at his best.  Tackling a huge issue that most people did not even want to acknowledge or admit, much like Sheila’s work to get domestic abuse on into the sunlight.  Both Paul and Sheila always put their very best energy into the struggles that were the most neglected, ignored, or hidden from view.

This is also an excellent example of how Paul connected with individuals of all political persuasions to address real issues. He was able to make great progress on this issue in the US Senate by working with New Mexico’s Pete Domenici, who recently helped pass mental health parity legislation by unanimous consent in the Senate.
Paul’s most important partner on this issue was his close friend Congressman Jim Ramstad.  Representative Ramstad has been the person most dedicated to making this dream come true with his Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. This bill, co-sponsored with Representative Patrick Kennedy, recently passed out of the Education and Labor Committee and is moving towards passage by the full House.  I want to express my personal appreciation to Congressman Jim Ramstad for this amazing accomplishment.

Paul and I occasionally got a chance to talk about why we were attracted to Minnesota – both having moved here from foreign lands – he from North Carolina and me from Iowa.

We loved many of the same things, including the beautiful farmlands, forests and prairies, the amazing, creative people,  progressive history and the open and dynamic political climate that fosters civic engagement above all other states and has nurtured great civil rights leaders like Nellie Stone Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and Vernon Bellecourt and important internationalist like Harold Stassen, Arvonne and Don Fraser, Fritz Mondale and William Norris. We both loved the way that Minnesotans held a deep respect for history, diversity and freedom. We talked about how great it was to live in a state where the words “ liberty and justice for all” had real meaning and where these values were represented by the many brave sons and daughters who volunteered to fight against slavery and fascism.

But we also spoke about the threats to this Minnesota that we loved. Unfair trade agreements and bad federal farm policy threaten family farmers and rural communities in every region of the state. Pollution makes our rivers unswimable and unfishable. Our soldiers and veterans are not receiving the care they need and deserve. Our public schools suffer from lack of investment and outright attack.  Paul also worried about the future of our democracy – condemning the manipulated elections in Florida in 2000, fearing these attacks on electoral integrity might seep into Minnesota.

While it is very painful to remember their deaths in that fiery crash, remembering the lives of Sheila and Paul Wellstone is so easy, so inspiring, so happy.  Those smiles – those amazing smiles that came from the joy they felt as they went about their lives of dedication and devotion --   to each other and to the changes they struggled mightily to make in this world. They were ordinary people who led their lives in ways that inspired other ordinary people to do extraordinary things. They were leaders who did not say  “no we can’t” -- they said “yes we can!”

Sheila and Paul were able to keep a sense of balance and equilibrium because of how they understood the world and how they saw political organizing.  Their mission, they would often remind us, was not to make a heaven on Earth but to make this Earth a better place – healing through the power of love. It was not about perfection, it is about the long Arc of Justice as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so powerfully reminded us.  

Paul and Sheila knew that true change does not come by the actions of a few leaders, no matter how inspiring or powerful or energetic or smart or accomplished.  Social change comes from social movements – the collective activities of society.  Public service is social change in motion. Being a Senator was like being an ambulance driver or soldier or teacher or school bus driver. Serving each other and working together to make this a better place are group activities and did not rise or fall – succeed or fail – depending on the actions of Paul and Sheila Wellstone. They carried their share of the work and then some, they raised kids that carry on their work and they inspired others because they knew it was not about them – it was about us.

In my final moments I want to talk about us – those of us here tonight and those not here, whose lives have been forever changed by Sheila and Paul.  We have come out of a very dark moment in the weeks and months right after the plane crash and gotten ourselves back on track and many amazing things have happened.  And while much has been done over the last five years none of us are satisfied with the current state of the nation or the state of our state.

In 2008 we have a chance to honor through our work the lives of Paul, Sheila, Marcia, Mary, Tom and Will. It will be an extraordinary year by any measure – with political caucuses and conventions, elections, our state’s sesquicentennial and many important decisions being made that will set our future.  We can honor our friends by re-dedicating our lives to creating a fair and just society for everyone – healing through the power of love. 

Paul and Sheila lived each day as if there would always be another day – and therefore another opportunity to create a new future. They were right – each of you here tonight is continuing to create that future and you are asking the questions they would be asking - about what is true, what is right and what is fair. 

Losing people we dearly love has so many dramatic and largely uncontrollable effects. This I know on a very personal level. You can get lost and bitter. But if your family, friends and community gather around and hold you in their love it is possible to turn grief into a renewed focus on what is important in life. Paul and Sheila were part of the community of friends and family who came together to hold Nancy and me when we lost our daughter Rachel to a drunk driver over Thanksgiving weekend in 2000.

At the end of the memorial service for Rachel, Paul came and found me and gave me the most incredible hug – a bearhug like only wrestler can give. He did not say a word, he did not have to, he just held me.

At the service we used a poem from Wendell Berry that captured the spirit of life in a time of loss. In part it goes like this:

“We clasp the hands of those that go before us, and the hands of those who come after us.”

“We enter the little circle of each other’s arms and the larger circle of lovers, whose hands are joined in a dance, and the larger circle of all creatures passing in and out of life.”

Tonight Paul and Sheila cannot say any words to us. But if we are open to it we can feel their arms around us and their hands in ours. If we can feel the love they had for each other, for their community, for life itself we can continue down our own paths with the help of their inspiration and support.

Thank you Sheila. Thank you Paul.

As we remember you we become stronger and more gentle - more caring and more powerful -  more dedicated to peace and understanding.  We remember about the power of love to heal.

Thanks to you we understand as never before that we all do better– much much better - when we all do better.