Hello, bloggers.

The other day, when I was watching television here in Ireland, they broke into regular programming on the only real American channel that I can get here, which is Fox.  CNN has some good coverage, but it’s more international in focus.  Fox broke in with the news of Tim Russert dying so suddenly, and to hear it was like getting kicked in the stomach.  I felt lost, like I had lost an old friend.  I really looked to him as someone who had been in the game, knew the rules, knew the participants, and would call it as he saw it, as an American, not as a Democrat, Republican, or independent, but as a free-thinking person of the type that the founders of our country wanted to govern with when they wrote the Constitution.

There was no one on any of the pundit shows like Tim Russert.  He did the research.  He didn’t let people off the hook.  He asked the hard questions, but in a way that was respectful of people’s differences.  He didn’t make fun of people who changed their opinion, as long as they could defend their change.  As a commentator, he was utterly fair.  Everyone got the same treatment.  Watching Tim Russert was a kind of shortcut to the political culture in the United States.  He was truly one of the great, open-minded sages of our time, a great observer and a great analyst of the human condition.  He was greatly loved, and he will be dearly missed.

When I heard the news, I did the arithmetic immediately.  Tim Russert died at 58.  I have had 18 more years than he did.  There are so many lessons that his untimely death gives us.  The first is:  If you’re gonna do it, do it now.  And if you’re gonna do it, do it right.  I think that’s so important.  If there’s something you really and truly want to do, DO IT NOW, and DO IT RIGHT.

In the first part of my life, I was blessed to be in the funeral business.  To this day, when I wake up in the morning, I know that this day may be my last, so I’d better not waste it.   Whenever my time comes, I will probably die unfulfilled but happy—I say unfulfilled because I’m at my happiest when I’m not fulfilled, not sated, when I’m still at my quest.  The only perspective I have is to look back, and I can look back from where I started to where I am now and say:  I’m very pleased with where I am, but if I live another five years, and I look back, and I’m still at the same place then that I am now, then I will know I’m not happy, because I haven’t progressed.  Progression is a personal thing; it’s very often not perceived by others; it’s perceived by the individual.  Only we know if we have truly progressed.  Do we still have our hidden prejudices and hates?  Do we still not like certain people?  Are we jealous?  Are all the human foibles swimming around in our heads?

I can say that as of right now, I’m very happy, and if I died today, they could truthfully put on my tombstone:  “He died happy.”  Could you have put the same thing on there when I was 58?  Possibly, but I would have left a lot unfulfilled.  That’s the thought I had for Tim Russert.  He had made so many great strides, but he could have continued making even greater and greater strides.  I think we depended on him as a mentor and a resource, and we are going to be left now to fend for ourselves or look someplace else, which is going to be very difficult.  We are are diminished by his loss, because he brought so much to the table.

Talk to you later,
Matt