The Brockovich Report

We live in a world of such constant change that we are sometimes left ragged and overwhelmed along the sidelines in shell-shock. Alvin Toffler wrote about this in 1970, and termed the phenomenon "Future Shock." The rate of social change leaves us suffering with "shattering stress and disorientation."

But that was back in the Seventies. Somehow we have managed to bump along without all of us shattering and losing all of our sanity. I think that is because some things change so slowly they almost seem to stay the same. These things become for us bastions of stability, almost foundations for reality, in the same way the rising and setting of the sun establishes temporal parameters. This is day. This is night.

When a piece of that foundation is abruptly gone, we look up in disorientation from our rapid-fire day to day reality. It's like that credit card advertisement, where the people are humming along like happy little machines until someone doesn't pull out the correct plastic, then everything stops.

In a journalistic world where spin and buzz have more impact than fact, and members of the press deliberately obfuscate issues for their own respective agendas, Tim Russert was one of the few who had a great skill. He knew how to ask questions. He knew how to get to the story.

For seventeen years, Tim Russert has been the face of "Meet the Press." For that weekly public "hour," he spent many unseen hours in preparation behind the scenes. Americans know his face and name. He is one of those bastions in our daily lives, one of the bricks in the foundation of American life.

I watched with sadness the news of Tim Russert's heart attack.

What a legacy he left behind. How sadly ironic that he wrote from the heart about fathers (Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons, Big Russ and Me : Father and Son: Lessons of Life) and the timing of his death will forever after tie him to Father's Day.

How gracious and thoughtful he was even under duress.

They said on the news even though he did have a condition, he had recently passed a stress test (in April.) The unexpectedness of his death left me looking at heart conditions, at how much we all work and get stressed over things, and the importance of exercise, excellent diet and sleep.

It has been no time at all since my Mom died in my arms. Tim Russert's death tapped into my own wellspring of grief. I'm sure he reminds us all of those empty seats in our lives.

It's time to remember. It's time to do.
Time to remember just how short life really is.
Time to notice how much we get wrapped up in work.
Time to take good care of ourselves.
Time to enjoy every day.

We all walk in the shadow of death, so don't take anything for granted.

Enjoy your family, the earth and all that we have..

Because ultimately all we have is now.