The day after the referendum on the Belfast Agreement, a Northern nationalist friend said to me: "For the first time I feel that I belong here." When I asked her what she meant she continued, "Well, of course I belong here in that I was born here and have lived here all my life. But I do feel, for the first time, that this could be my government in Belfast. I really want it to work."
Nothing that I've heard since has so eloquently illustrated the profound changes that could now be within our grasp. But for a new government to work in the way that she and so many other people in Northern Ireland want, there has to be a secure majority in the new Assembly who are in favour of implementing the Belfast Agreement in a generous and constructive way. Experts fear that if 30 of the seats in the 108-member assembly are held by anti-agreement unionists, this minority could frustrate the aims of the accord.
The stakes are that high in next week's election. This is an occasion when voters will have to behave with courage and what the journalist Nick Tomalin once described as "rat-like cunning" at the polls.
It could mean having to abandon the cherished party loyalties of a lifetime, at least this time around. The friend I've quoted above understands this very well. Within 48 hours of casting her vote for the agreement, this woman, who has never voted unionist in her life, was talking about transferring at least her lower preference vote to the pro-agreement unionist candidate in her constituency.
The debate about tactical voting has been tetchy and over-cautious as far as the politicians are concerned. Parties which came together, often with great courage, to sign up to the accord are now extremely reluctant to admit that, in this election at least, they are on the same side. They are, quite understandably, fearful of causing alarm to their own supporters and, in the unionist case, of providing ammunition to the Democratic Unionists and to Bob McCartney's UKUP.
Only the SDLP, the party most clearly identified in the public mind with the Belfast Agreement, has come out and urged its supporters to give their transfers, right across the board, to pro-agreement candidates, including both Sinn Fein and unionists who are known to be in favour. John Taylor, unlike David Trimble, has sailed close to the wind in difficult circumstances. The deputy leader of the UUP has told unionist voters to transfer to pro-agreement parties, but has stopped short of endorsing either nationalist group.
Sinn Fein, typically, has balked at this fence and has advised its voters not to transfer even to pro-agreement unionists, on the grounds that David Trimble has not yet talked to Gerry Adams.
But the Sinn Fein leader is a shrewd politician and must know that the more secure David Trimble's position is in the new Assembly, the more likely he is to set about the task of implementing the agreement in a constructive fashion.
Mr Adams may, in fact, be softening, On Monday he praised those unionists who had voted for the Belfast deal as having "voted for the future". He was quoted in this paper as assuring them that "there is an honoured and honourable place for unionism in the new Ireland."
It's an assurance that would carry more credibility if the Sinn Fein leader could bring himself to indicate that these unionists may need and deserve nationalist support at the polls.
As so often in Northern Ireland, the signs are that the voters are ahead of the politicians on this one. The Irish News, which is generally very close to the views of its readers, ran a trenchant editorial last week entitled: "Use Your Vote to Back Deal".
The newspaper reproached Martin McGuinness for telling Sinn Fein voters not to transfer their lower preferences to UUP candidates and made the point that if the Assembly is to work "it is essential that it contains as many members as possible who are committed to the Good Friday Agreement."
The writer urged Irish News readers to "think long and hard" about where to direct all their preferences. There is anecdotal evidence that the voters are doing just that. One Catholic man, who again has never voted unionist in his life, told me that he was seriously considering giving his first preference to the single pro-agreement unionist candidate in his overwhelmingly nationalist constituency. He reckons that on this occasion the SDLP will do well anyway and his vote will be worth more if it helps to elect a strong and trusted supporter of David Trimble.
There are other good reasons to consider voting tactically beyond the larger political blocs. The PR system which has been chosen for this election is not kind to small parties, some of which played an extremely important role in the negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement.
A case in point is the Women's Coalition. Everyone to whom I've spoken praises the voice of reason it brought both to the Belfast Forum, and to the talks at Stormont. If promises of second preferences could ensure election the Women's Coalition would be assured of seats. The problem for a candidate like the admirable Monica McWilliams is that if she cannot attract sufficient No 1 votes, she risks being eliminated in the first round, before the second preferences can trickle down to her.
Political scientists tell us that by far the most important factor in determining how people vote is how their parents voted before them. However, this can change when voters perceive that an election is of historic importance and want to be part of the process of bringing about change. The classic examples of this are the British Labour Party's landslide victory at the end of the war in 1945 and, more recently, when Tony Blair swept the Conservatives from power.
Northern Ireland's voters are intelligent, more experienced than most and, miraculously, not cynical about the importance of the polls. Thousands of people who do not usually vote came out to do so in the referendum because they recognised that the outcome could shape a better future for Northern Ireland.
Now these people are faced with a challenge of equal historic significance, to deliver on the second essential part of the deal. Who knows what might follow if the voters unite in supporting candidates, of whatever party, who are committed to taking the agreement forward? After so many years of frustration and despair, we could be on our way to a new kind of politics in Ireland which has the potential to heal the terrible wounds of our history.