Chap­ter 27: Lion in Win­ter depicts a poignant and deeply per­son­al chap­ter in the life of Con­gress­man John Lewis, explor­ing his bat­tle with can­cer and the unwa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion he exhib­it­ed to his work and ideals. The chap­ter high­lights the endur­ing rela­tion­ship between Lewis and his long­time aide, Michael Collins, who had been a pil­lar of sup­port for two decades, man­ag­ing not just his pro­fes­sion­al com­mit­ments but also offer­ing vital per­son­al assis­tance. As fall 2019 set in, Collins became increas­ing­ly con­cerned about Lewis’s dete­ri­o­rat­ing health, notic­ing dras­tic changes in his appear­ance and ener­gy lev­els, such as sig­nif­i­cant weight loss and exhaus­tion. This raised red flags, prompt­ing him to gen­tly encour­age Lewis to seek med­ical atten­tion, although both had hoped the issue would resolve with some sim­ple dietary changes.

When Lewis con­fid­ed in his for­mer sched­uler Jacob Gilli­son about not feel­ing well, Gilli­son imme­di­ate­ly expressed his con­cerns and urged Lewis to under­go a med­ical exam­i­na­tion. Despite Lewis’s ini­tial resis­tance, he agreed to the tests, and Dr. Bri­an Mon­a­han was soon brought in to con­duct fur­ther assess­ments. The hope was that the issue could be addressed eas­i­ly with changes to his lifestyle, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, the results proved far graver than any­one could have imag­ined. The diag­no­sis of Stage 4 pan­cre­at­ic can­cer was a dev­as­tat­ing blow to both Lewis and Collins, but Lewis’s strength and deter­mi­na­tion to remain active in his work remained unshak­en. Even as he learned of his con­di­tion, he resolved to con­tin­ue his con­gres­sion­al duties, giv­ing impas­sioned speech­es on key issues such as civ­il rights, jus­tice, and impeach­ment pro­ceed­ings.

Through­out this chal­leng­ing peri­od, Lewis remained an indomitable force in pol­i­tics and social jus­tice, and his resilience served as an inspi­ra­tion to every­one around him. As the hol­i­day sea­son arrived, Lewis, despite his declin­ing health, still found joy in cre­ative out­lets such as paint­ing, using art as a form of ther­a­py to cope with the emo­tion­al weight of his diag­no­sis. How­ev­er, break­ing the news to his col­leagues, friends, and fam­i­ly proved to be a deeply emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence. The out­pour­ing of love, sup­port, and admi­ra­tion for his life’s work was over­whelm­ing, demon­strat­ing how deeply con­nect­ed he was to the peo­ple he had fought for and worked along­side through­out his career.

With the new year came the com­mence­ment of chemother­a­py, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact­ed his phys­i­cal well-being but not his com­mit­ment to the caus­es he had always cham­pi­oned. Despite his per­son­al strug­gles, Lewis remained active­ly engaged in polit­i­cal dis­course, offer­ing his sup­port for Joe Biden’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and par­tic­i­pat­ing in vital pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions. He cel­e­brat­ed sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones, includ­ing his 80th birth­day and the anniver­sary of Bloody Sun­day, though his declin­ing health required assis­tance for par­tic­i­pa­tion. His abil­i­ty to keep his spir­it alive, even in these phys­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing times, show­cased his deep ded­i­ca­tion to the lega­cy of his activism and his mis­sion to bring about social change.

Even as his health con­tin­ued to decline, with hos­pi­tal vis­its becom­ing more fre­quent and inter­rup­tions from chemother­a­py treat­ments impact­ing his dai­ly rou­tine, Lewis’s con­cern for oth­ers nev­er wavered. His empa­thy remained one of his defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics, as he con­tin­ued to ask about the well-being of his vis­i­tors, even as he him­self fought a fierce bat­tle against can­cer. The chap­ter offers a deep reflec­tion on the life of a man who, despite fac­ing ter­mi­nal ill­ness, main­tained his com­mit­ment to his work and lega­cy. Lewis’s bat­tle with can­cer serves as a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to his life­long pur­suit of jus­tice and equal­i­ty, remind­ing read­ers of the remark­able resilience he exhib­it­ed in the face of life’s harsh­est tri­als. His unwa­ver­ing spir­it, focus on com­mu­ni­ty, and tire­less advo­ca­cy for civ­il rights endure as part of his pro­found impact on the world.