Early this afternoon, various mainstream media sources reported that U.S. Senator John S. McCain has died from complications due to brain cancer at the age of 81.
My earliest memory of him can be traced back to the hot summer of 1982, when he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. As we saw him on the evening news, McCain was controversial for more than his hotspur opinions. He'd been a U.S. Navy fighter pilot, flying F-4 phantoms off aircraft carriers--when he was shot down in mid-1967. North Vietnamese photographers got him on grainy black-and-white film, in which he made what we might think of as a fairly general statement of his existence. The mere fact that he said anything at all was something of an issue at the time, long before Donald Trump said "I don't like people who have been captured."
He was permanently injured during the process of ejecting from his burning aircraft, later tortured by North Vietnamese interrogators who broke most of the bones in his body. As I write this paragraph, it is common knowledge that he was not able to raise either of his arms over his head for most of his adult life. That fact doesn't get much air play because it never slowed him down. For the most part, he said himself that his disabilities gave him an advantage--because--they reminded him what was important and worth doing.
There's a simple truth in that, I've known it for as long as I remember. Many times over the years, Senator McCain was asked about his motivations, it seemed quite difficult for some people to believe he was "helped" by what slowed him down. In the summer of 1987, I worked as an intern in the office of Senator Ted Stevens. As I watched McCain on close-circuit TV (CSPAN), I couldn't help noticing how he always seemed to be a little irritated by the same question over-and-over again, as if he was trying to say something the cameras just wouldn't translate.
In simple truth, that which does not kill you really can make you stronger. At the very least, it's a helluva wakeup call. Reality check or not, it can be a source of power when you take stock of what you can do--no matter what is going on around you. What you don't have tells you what you need to get or to actually "do."
That's worth remembering when something seems to be a bit "much." Anything worth doing is hard, especially when you dissent. There will be moments when nobody else sees what is obvious to you, not even when it's the opportunity of a lifetime. To wrap up, I just want to say that this man was inspirational to me for many reasons, not the least of which was his grasp of the truth about disability and what you can draw from it.