Tuesday was a bittersweet day. The Senate reconvened and opened with a moving tribute to Paul Wellstone. Laud and love and praise from both sides, it had been preceded by Dean Barkley's swearing-in and was put into true motion by Sen. Mark Dayton's heartfelt paean to his friend, mentor and model.

Tom Daschle spoke, as did Trent Lott. It was good.

It was also oddly out of time, coming as it did after the intense weeks that started with a plane crash and ended -- suddenly -- with an election. Swept out were Democrats, Democratic goals and dreams, Democratic hopes. Out of nowhere, the world was entirely different.

One woke up the morning after the election with an overwhelming sense of something gone wrong, terribly wrong to the core of one's being, leaving a gray space in the mind to partner with an empty place in the heart. No amount of listmaking, volunteering, citizen lobbying, report writing was going to make up for what was lost. We were left with just a hope that Wellstone's energy -- once gathered into such a tiny, mighty vessel -- was now diffused like a solar flare onto all of us and we would be emboldened for the new fight.

In the days immediately after the election, everyone I know became ill. If we are as we think, then we were a mess. And it was not a quick passing for anyone, but rather a long and dismal recovery. On that election eve dusk, we waited the night out, unable to do any more to make the election end as we wished, for Fritz Mondale but so much more for Paul and Sheila Wellstone.

By early morning I took the advice of the bipartisan pundits and slept for the few hours that would bring the final tally. When I woke, I found the Republican margin widened and all hope gone.

It was utterly, finally, totally over. By dawn I was fighting a fever, and by noon was under the covers, hiding from my viruses, the Republican victories and an alien world.

I came through the week slowly, like so many others. The negative ads were gone, there were no more interviews, no more talking heads, no more candidacy analyses, all the debates were over, and the startling quiet of the postelection days should have, one would think, brought some healing, possibly even acceptance. We are, after all, practical people, grown-ups, and life goes on.

On Tuesday, I sat on the couch, some light supper at hand, watching the television news on a small set next to my computer. The gentle "bing" of the e-mail minder came through as it always does, bringing news and notes from friends and colleagues. I read a nicely written newspaper article on the rush for fundraising for Fritz Mondale, and thought back to the riotous fundraiser of just a week before -- so much hope, so much power and energy!

I put the newspaper down and sighed, clicked on the computer screen and scrolled down through the new e-mail.

Like a green flashing neon sign, there was another "Words From Wellstone," just like all the dozens of e-messages that had been streaming into my inbox all autumn long.

I lunged for the mouse and clicked on the banner. Oh, the rush of adrenaline of that last election week was pouring through my body -- such sudden excitement and delight and hope!

But no, no, he was gone.

They were gone . . . gone.

They're dead. They will never come back. We will never see them again in this world.

And I cried. Not the breath-grabbing, visceral, screaming crying that I couldn't stop when I got the news at 1 p.m. on the Friday three weeks and a thousand years ago. That was a cyclone. This was autumn rain. Just quiet grieving, loving tears, helping my poor child mind to accept the reality of death, of loss, of great treasure in our midst slipped away.

I sat on the couch for a long time afterward. I thought of the traditional Jewish funeral, the Star of David on Paul's simple wood coffin. I know the beloved friend who gave the eulogy. I know the cantor who chanted the Kaddish, that magnificent praise of life.

I sang the Kaddish now, quietly, to myself. "Yis gadal v'yis kadash sh'mei rabah . . . ." "Let the Glory of God's great name be extolled . . . ."

I couldn't chant it for him when he died. If I said Kaddish, then he -- all of them -- had really died, and I wasn't ready then to say so.

Now I can, and healing begins. I will miss him so.

". . . and let us say 'Amen.' "

Deborah Morse-Kahn, Minneapolis. Sociologist.

© Copyright 2002 Star Tribune.

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