The world lost John Lewis two years ago today, and sharing that loss, I additionally lost a friend, collaborator, and personal hero. Someone who’s guided my approach to parenthood and fellowship as much as he guided my social and political sensibilities— because they’re all intertwined.

I’m re-upping a piece Andrew Aydin and I wrote for CNN two years ago— every word burns brighter, and the warning is just as stark:

“It is no vindication that today his mandate is increasingly seen as a necessity for the very survival of our democracy. We've all lived the consequences of nationalist myth clouding our shared history, as well as the struggles endured to maintain a precarious democracy. But we're only at the beginning of those potentially catastrophic consequences. Truth matters. History — told by the people who lived it — can and will determine our ability to sustain and fight for a society holding actual equality, actual justice, actual freedom, and actual peace as ideals.

“John Lewis spent his massive lifetime marching toward that promise, and we must fulfill it. We can. But we must do it together, now, even with the possibility that nothing already lost will return.”

Read the full piece here. Then show up. Truly, everything depends on it— or it all goes away.