The Death of Tim Russert, last week, sent me off on an emotional treadmill that involved Peter Jennings, 9.11 and my father. Just days before father’s day, I thought first of all of Russert’s family – Russert, who died in a way similar to the way my father died just this past year: suddenly, without warning, and in his fifties.
I thought about the absolute pain and feelings of loss – and not just the void that losing a person creates in the heart; but also the aimless feeling of rootless-ness and of being, oneself, “lost” in the world now, suddenly unable to make sense of anything -- that are brought on by death.
I don’t ever mourn for celebrities – but somehow, this one was a bit different. Mostly because he was a TV journalist – I’m not sure I should call him an anchorman, though he was, in fact an “anchor” in many a household on Sunday mornings.
The reason I think it’s different – why I feel different for TV newsmen/women, than for other celebrities when they die (for instance, I didn’t shed a tear for Yves Saint Laurent, though god knows he feasted my eyes with his designs many a time) is because of what these TV journalists mean. For me, I can bring it home most clearly with Peter Jennings. When the towers came to a crumbling, dusty crash one early morning in early September, I was in New York, and Peter Jennings was there with me – he was there to talk me through it, to inform me, to give me the most peace I could get anywhere, from anybody, while at the same time, agitating my momentarily shocked person. I’ll admit – I got an unbelievable crush on the man…and when he died…when he died I was sad, even though I hadn't ever, literally met him. I mourned him; I think I might have even cried.
I never cry for people I don’t know…but somehow we know these men, we know them through their work and their presence is part of their work, and hence, there is a very real human connection to what they convey to us.
My heart is with Russert’s family.
I thought about the absolute pain and feelings of loss – and not just the void that losing a person creates in the heart; but also the aimless feeling of rootless-ness and of being, oneself, “lost” in the world now, suddenly unable to make sense of anything -- that are brought on by death.
I don’t ever mourn for celebrities – but somehow, this one was a bit different. Mostly because he was a TV journalist – I’m not sure I should call him an anchorman, though he was, in fact an “anchor” in many a household on Sunday mornings.
The reason I think it’s different – why I feel different for TV newsmen/women, than for other celebrities when they die (for instance, I didn’t shed a tear for Yves Saint Laurent, though god knows he feasted my eyes with his designs many a time) is because of what these TV journalists mean. For me, I can bring it home most clearly with Peter Jennings. When the towers came to a crumbling, dusty crash one early morning in early September, I was in New York, and Peter Jennings was there with me – he was there to talk me through it, to inform me, to give me the most peace I could get anywhere, from anybody, while at the same time, agitating my momentarily shocked person. I’ll admit – I got an unbelievable crush on the man…and when he died…when he died I was sad, even though I hadn't ever, literally met him. I mourned him; I think I might have even cried.
I never cry for people I don’t know…but somehow we know these men, we know them through their work and their presence is part of their work, and hence, there is a very real human connection to what they convey to us.
My heart is with Russert’s family.
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