I’ve written twice now about Tim Russert, feeling a real loss, and decided I was finished, but this afternoon my son sent this to me with the message "Crushingly moving." As usual, he was right. So if you missed it, here it is.
Tag: Tim Russert
AT TIM RUSSERT’S WAKE: A LITTLE BIT OF HOW IT SEEMED
So many people here and on Twitter have been talking about this; I thought I’d just tell you what it was like.
I got there at around four. The line went from the door to a large room at St. Alban’s School just next to the National Cathedral, where the wake was, up the stairs and a long walk to the driveway, around to the Cathedral front lawn. The last little bit was lined with wreaths – some of them very large – of flowers from friends and colleagues. There were several TV trucks and groups of reporters and camera people on folding chairs under the trees.
This had begun at 2PM and would last until 9 — sad, but not dismal. It was a beautiful day, sunny, breezy, not at all humid – just gorgeous. And we were all grateful to be there. It was a generous thing for the Russerts to do in the midst of their own grief — allowing friends, as well as admirers who’d never met Tim but felt that they knew him anyway — to act on their own sadness.
I talked to some random people in line with me: a woman who’d not known Tim at all but just wanted to be there and, happily, an old friend and pollster with whom I waited most of the way down the hill. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, so we caught up on our lives and our kids and our sadness. I started to tell him about all of Tim’s kindnesses to my boys when they were little; he started to tell me about his son’s internship at Meet the Press. Any one of Tim’s friends would have had a dozen stories just like those.
All along the way, very kind staff and parents from the school, where Tim’s son Luke had gone, were there with name tags that said “volunteer” under their names and offers of help, directions, a place to leave a note for the family, ice water – just gracious and kind. I saw, as we arrived in the room itself, that the casket, covered with white flowers with a note that said “Love, Coco and Luke” was being guarded by what looked like young soldiers out of uniform. I’ve since learned that they are high school classmates of Luke’s who will stand guard throughout the night.
We made our way past the casket in two lines, one on each side. Tim’s wife Maureen Orth was there, thanking people for coming. Then we were out, in a hallway, where another volunteer offered us the opportunity to leave a note on paper that would be bound into a book. The line was long, and each person spent considerable time – the comments were anything but brief.
Just at the end, as we made our way out, stood this photo, the one I used yesterday, up on an easel. I was so glad to see it there – not because I’d used it too but because it was a declaration, which I’d felt and clearly his family felt, that the joy and mischief of this man was what we should take with us back into the world.
Tomorrow there is a small funeral and a memorial service at the Kennedy Center which I’m sure will be amazing. And all of it will help those who loved and admired this larger-than-life presence deal with the reality of his absence.
I want to say that, because of all the posts on Twitter and here on in the blogorama, I felt I was representing many of us and left a note that said as much. It was a privilege to be there.
SO LONG TIM. ALL THE NICE THINGS WE’VE BEEN SAYING ABOUT YOU WERE TRUE – AND IT’S NOT FAIR – NOT AT ALL
I worked at NBC News, at the TODAY SHOW for nine years, and for much of that time, I was lucky enough to work with Tim Russert. The picture on the left was one of the few I could find that showed that great, mischievous expression that meant we were going to have fun so even if it’s not a DC kind of photo, it’s the one I like best.
I first met Tim when he still worked with Mario Cuomo., on the Democratic Convention floor in 1984 when Cuomo electrified the crowd and I chased Tim, whom I’d never met, half way out to the parking lot to get a promise that the Governor would be on the show the next day. He was psyched, hyped and way too busy but he was also adorable and very sweet as we worked to get things organized.
So when he came to NBC and went to work on getting the Vatican to let us come and do a week of shows in Rome, including time with the Pope, I watched Tim play it out. He worked with Cardinal Kroll in Philadelphia and with one of his colleagues who worked in the Vatican and somehow we got our on-the-air mass with Pope John Paul II and a Philadelphia Catholic school boys choir sang on the TODAY SHOW. Who but Tim would have made that happen?
There’s not much I can say that hasn’t been said; I couldn’t write sooner because my kids were visiting for the weekend and I wasn’t being very bloggy. But as the news broke, my younger son called from the airport. He was really sad. I’d forgotten how lovely Tim was to Dan, who was around 6 when they met. Treated him like a cool guy, gave him an NBC baseball cap that I think he still has, teased him guy to guy. When I went over to deliver our bassinet after Luke arrived Dan came along and this new daddy still had time for a bit of a conversation with a six year old. AND to show us a tape of Willard Scott announcing Luke’s birth on the show.
All week people have been talking about Tim’s love of politics. That was true; and he mined every subtle message and decision for meaning and impact. But he had another quality that was even more valuable in a journalist: a contagious enthusiasm for living that made each story part of a grand adventure. He brought everyone in his orbit along with him — sharing energy and laughter, competition that was fierce but never mean and a real belief in both the fun and the importance of journalism in a democracy.
I moved to LA and we mostly lost touch – although he did send a Meet the Press baseball cap in response to a note I sent him. It made me feel remembered – as it was meant to. It was the kind of gesture that’s been in the stories people have been telling all week — it’s just that this one’s mine. And since I’m not one of the rock stars who have been telling these stories all week, just someone he worked with, I’m hoping it will demonstrate the genuine niceness of this guy. Really.
There’s a wake tomorrow and I’m going to try to go. I’m betting that there will be a mob scene there but I’d just like to show respect for a moment or two. I’ve seen so many of us writing about this very sad thing; I’ll say a bit of a goodbye for all of us.