On election night, I refused to read the news or look at my phone. I put everything on Do Not Disturb and went to sleep. When I woke up to the results, the despair was immediate and pervasive — despair for our country, despair for the world, despair for members of our global community whose identities would come under attack simply because of who they are.

And my despair was painfully personal as well. Having lost my dad just five months prior, I felt unprepared for how to navigate this tumultuous time.

My dad, Ron Rappaport.

My moral compass, my politics junkie, my rock who got four newspapers (including this one) delivered at home and subscribed to several more online.

My dad who wrote to me in 2016 when that year’s election results came in: “We will all get through this — somehow. It feels so bleak now, but life as we know it will go on, and we have each other to hang on to. Love you so much.”

How would I get through this alone?

As the dust has settled and as the mind-boggling headlines pour in, the answer is so clear to me. I am not getting through this moment alone. My dad is within me making evident how best to proceed. It’s in how he lived his life, which I was privileged to have a front-row seat to for 40 years: making change at the local level, bringing kindness and generosity and love to people who are struggling, and showing up with ideas, creativity and support right where he was, whether that was at home, at work or in his community.

And that is the challenge for each of us in this moment, to figure out where we can bring our light, our acts of civility and of support. How we can show up as an ally to those in need, and that will look differently for each of us.

My dad was a behind-the-scenes wizard at this — forming an emergency hospital board back in the ’90s when the threat of foreclosure loomed large for the MV Hospital, working to ensure Vineyarders would have access to easy, free rapid testing during the Covid-19 pandemic with his support of TestMV, and his dogged commitment to empowering a younger generation of Islanders to gain access to resources and education through his efforts with organizations such as MVYouth, the Red Stocking Fund and the MV Bank Charitable Foundation, among many, many others.

I am not my dad. I can’t affect that kind of change. But the challenge is still there. What can I do? What power do I have? It’s not at the federal level, so I’ve decided to resist reacting to the sensational headlines. The power to make a difference is, as dad showed me, right where I am, and that power is large. It’s at home. It’s at work. It’s in my community.

And so at the dinner table with my two young kids, age four and gaining on two, we’ve been talking even more about kindness and it’s power. We’ve been looking at books about presidents and exploring questions like “Why have there only been male presidents?” and “Do you think that’s right? Do you think you might want to be part of the solution to change that?”

At work, where I serve as an editor of a university’s alumni magazine, it’s meant paying even more attention to the stories we tell, the images we select for each page and why. It’s putting together a feature story about varsity women athletes where the photos show dirt, grit and sweat because that’s what a female athlete looks like. It’s sharing news about efforts to increase LGBTQ+ equity. It’s using that platform not to check a certain identity box, but because through storytelling, we are able to increase understanding and empathy. And that has the power to reverberate.

That’s part of the answer I’ve found for myself. I am not a protester. I am not an organizer. I am not a behind-the-scenes wizard whose efforts have at many times lifted up a community. But I am an ally. I have the potential to be powerful. I can think creatively about resisting the evils in today’s world. I can show kindness.

And even though it once felt hopeless — how would I ever figure out answers to anything overwhelming anymore without my dad by my side — the answer was in me all along because my guiding star has not been extinguished. He just shows up a little differently now.

Julia Rappaport lives in Newton and Chilmark.