Of course, we are all shocked and deeply saddened by the passing of Tim Russert last Friday. God bless him, and God bless his family and friends.
I want this commentary to be up here for two days — Monday and Tuesday — because I want us to all just stop for a moment and look closely at what has happened here.
Someone who we all felt we knew, someone whose face is recognized by millions, someone who had an effect on the lives of many, many people, has died. Unexpectedly. Suddenly. Apparently without even a moment for Tim, himself, to know what was happening. Reports from the producer of Meet the Press, which he moderated for NBC News for 17 years, indictate that Tim was about to do some recording of voice-overs for Sunday’s program when he simply collaspsed, there in the recording booth.

He was transported to the hospital by ambulance but, reports said, he never came to. It was, those near him said, very sudden, very quick, and very complete. Total. Absolute. Not so much as a moment to say goodbye…
I am not alone, I know, in experiencing being touched by this very deeply. Unlike Tim, I know that I have a heart problem. (Tim, his doctor said in news reports today, had just passed a stress test in April.) I have already been told by my physician that I have CVD (cardio vascular disease). I have thus been trying to watch more closely what I eat (and have not been always successful in warding off temptation), and have taken other measures to help myself — including, just last Thursday, canceling a string of speaking events in the U.K. to which I was to begin traveling on this very day.
What Tim’s death has brought up for me is more than a little apprehension about my own future. (Tim was six years younger than I.) It also made me very clear that I want to begin acting as if each day could be my last. I don’t mean to be morbid about this…truly, I don’t…but I have been wondering since last Friday….if something happened to me suddenly, without the slightest warning, and I was all-at-once no longer here in this physical environment, would I have said to all of my loved ones what I want them to hear, what I want them to know?
Have I forgiven all those I have to forgive? Have I asked forgiveness of all those from whom I need to seek it? Have I done all that I wish to do? If not, what is now, on this day, left undone? And how important is it?
I’ve noticed things changing inside of me since I heard about Tim on Friday. I feel softer somehow, not nearly as judgmental, not nearly as ready to “make someone wrong,” not nearly as impatient, not nearly as peeved or frustrated (in fact, not peeved or frustrated at all) when things have not gone my way these past few days. I’ve been more in touch wit God, too. I’ve been talking to Her every day. Several times every day, in fact.
I guess these are all natural reactions when we have a sudden and shocking reminder of our own mortality. But I want to live this way all the time, actually. I don’t want to go back to the Old Way. I want to be loving more and bothered less. Enjoying more and annoyed less. Experiencing more and missing less.
And when I say experiencing more, I don’t necessarily mean “doing” more. I mean, experiencing more of whatever I am doing — including if I am “doding nothing.” I mean, just relaxing. Or taking a slow walk through the park. Or lying in the tub. Or reading a good book. Or gazing into the eyes of my Beloved. None of which I have done nearly enough of lately – until this weekend, when I got the very clear message: You think you have forever? Think again. This NOW is the only moment you have. Use it well. Use it fully.
I am sorry for Tim’s family and for his many, many friends, who I know have been living with the shock and grief of his passing. I am clear that Tim, himself, is now in a wonderful place, and so I do not grieve for him. But I hold his loved ones in my heart today, as I know we all do, and, in Tim’s honor, I recommit this day to living my own life each golden moment at a time, praising God for the gift of Now, and showing my gratitude for it with every word I speak, every thought I hold, every action I take.
By every account, Tim Russert was a classy and kind and gentle man, who even in his toughtest questioning of political leaders in his role as a journalist never abandoned his civility and his respect for the other person as a human being, faulted and foibled even as was he. I am inspired by the wonderful words about the content of Tim’s character that
we have all heard these past several days…and if Tim Russert’s unexpected death did nothing else but inspire us all to reach deeper and be better as people, it can be embraced as a gift to us all — even as was his life.
May the same be said about you.
And me.
Until Wednesday…