What that blessing is can be different for each individual the person’s life touched. Perhaps, for you, Justice Ginsburg will be the trailblazer you remember when it’s time to take a first step into a new world. Perhaps she will be the survivor who sustains you through another day when your own battle seems too difficult. Perhaps she will be the still, small voice in the dark that says, “This too shall pass.” For me, she will be the figure standing beside me when what I want to do is hide, to sink into despair; the fellow soldier who taps the Black Squadron symbol I have tattooed on my wrist and says, “We are the spark that lights the fire…” In her honor, here are five comics about dissent. Because this is a rebellion, isn’t it? Sometimes, the greatest form of dissent is being willing to die for something but wanting to live for it much, much more. Surviving a revolution that destroys your way of life so completely you no longer recognize your beloved home. That instills in you a terror so deep neither time nor space will erase it completely. Surviving a freedom you don’t understand, that’s lonely and empty and sucks you dry. Returning home to find everything gone. Leaving because you have to save yourself even though you have no idea who that self is. Praying you’ll find her somewhere, someday. Bowed but never broken. But no matter what they do, you survive. It’s the little things, really. She did it her way. You do it yours. May her memory be a blessing.
