Opinion: How Jennifer Wexton is coping with a fatal disease tells us so much about life’s real meaning

Opinion by Jill Filipovic

(CNN) — Democratic US Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia is demonstrating what integrity and service look like.

In 2018, Wexton flipped a district that had been red for nearly 40 years and sailed into office along with a wave of other Democratic women, in a midterm backlash to the election of former President Donald Trump to the White House. While in office, she has been an advocate for women, children and human rights.

And now, at just 55, she’s stepping back: Wexton isn’t running for reelection, she says, because she was recently diagnosed with Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy, a rare and ravaging neurological disorder, and is not responding well to treatment.

It’s a heartbreaking diagnosis, and surely a gutting decision from a woman who has donned a Wonder Woman costume on the campaign trail with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, one of the many members of Congress who spoke in tribute to Wexton after her announcement. She has used her perch to do as much good as she can and bows out surely knowing that her congressional seat is particularly vulnerable.

Wexton has served in the truest meaning of the word. She’s a quiet force in Congress — if you’re not from Virginia, you might not have heard of her, because she doesn’t showboat. But she has pressed for more services for domestic violence and abuse victims. She has pushed for more funding for childhood cancer research.

In her own state — she served in the state legislature before running for Congress — she successfully helped to pass a law clearing the way for victims of revenge porn to sue, and protected the right of women to breastfeed in public.

These are not small things. For the women affected by these policies, they are the difference between justice and shame, between the right to exist in society and being forced to hide.

There is no doubt much more that Wexton could do if she held on to her seat in Congress. And she certainly tried; she described to The Washington Post what it was like asking her doctors if she could run again. But the diagnosis was simply too dire, and would make it too difficult for Wexton to do her job. And so, this woman who has spent so much of her life fighting for others, decided to spend whatever time is left with those she loves.

It’s a lesson a lot of powerful people could learn from.

Wexton is still young, which is part of what makes her diagnosis so tragic. But she’s part of one of the oldest Congresses ever. Many of her colleagues in the House, and many in the Senate, are octogenarians, well past the typical age of retirement in the United States. Age alone does not suggest that one is unable to do one’s job, and there are many members of Congress who are in their 70s and even 80s and seem as sharp as ever.

But that’s far from universal. Several have been the subject of public speculation about their physical health and mental abilities. And while some, like Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, have said they will not run for reelection, many have not; and even some who have shown signs of impairment or difficulty — like Feinstein and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — have not stepped down before the end of their terms.

Public servants who can’t serve their constituents, or the American people, particularly well have an obligation to consider the cost of their devotion to their positions. Wexton is setting an important example: If you are no longer able to serve well, it’s time to step back.

But she’s setting an important example in other ways, too — and particularly on the question of what it means to live a good life. There’s a growing body of research on what makes people happy and satisfied, and the conclusions point to so much of what Wexton has done personally and professionally. First, people need the fundamentals: safety, housing, enough to eat. Wexton has worked as an elected official to try to secure those fundamentals for others.

Atop those foundations one can start to build meaning, connection and purpose. Wexton has done that in her own life. She has had a professional life centered on serving others, and on advocating for the needs of the vulnerable and the less-lucky. She has used her power for good, and has left her mark on her state and her country. She surely could have done many things with her time on this earth, and with her position of power. She chose to do good.

Wexton is now stepping back from this purpose-driven path to spend time with her family. She has two sons who reportedly come back from college each weekend to see her, a husband who supports her and a network of colleagues and friends rallying around her. These kinds of deep connections don’t come easy; both are hallmarks and building blocks of a well-lived life. That Wexton is choosing to spend time with her loved ones, rather than dedicate her last days to her job or the pursuit of power, says much about her character and her understanding of what’s actually important.

There’s no upside to a smart, ambitious woman getting so sick or to the loss of any human being to a devastating illness. But there are benefits to remembering that we all only get one shot at our time on this earth, and rarely do we get to determine when and how we depart it. Death is tough to think about, but every day that we are lucky to be alive, we are also one step closer to our own departure.

And so it’s worth asking ourselves the same questions Wexton surely has: How do we plan on using our limited time here for good? What does a good life look like? And what does one gain by hanging onto power or status past the point where one is able to carry out one’s duties, and at the expense of one’s integrity?

I hope all of us, including Wexton’s colleagues in Congress and their families, are watching her master class in living well even in the face of immense tragedy, and are asking themselves these same questions.

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