Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself

Prologue

OCTOBER 2016

Today is the first Monday in October 2016, roughly a month before the most consequential election in modern American history. A former reality TV star is running against the first female nominee of a major party. NBC News, where I’ve worked for eight years, is scoring record-high ratings. There has never been a better time to be a political reporter like me.

But I’m not on the campaign trail. I’m carving out my own, in the backwoods of Maine on day five of my first solo travel adventure, far from the life I’ve lived and everything I’ve known. I am terrified of what lies ahead, in part because I will always remain for certain people in Washington, DC, Luke Russert, son of America’s most beloved political TV journalist, Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press and a man gone too soon. I’ve spent eight years building a broadcast TV career at NBC News like my dad, building a rapport with the audience, reporting from Congress, and even anchoring the occasional MSNBC show.

But I’ve just left that job and my entire media life. Lots of folks think I’m crazy. Hell, some days I think I am. Yet this drive—to give up my golden opportunity and everything I’ve known and be alone with my eight-year-old pug, Chamberlain, in the truck my dad gave me a few years before he died—is the beginning of trying to answer a question: Is it wrong to seek something else from life? The power circles of Washington, DC, and television news left me unfulfilled and unhappy. What am I missing in this world? And why haven’t I felt whole?

In Maine I seek some form of liberation, a freedom from the expectations placed on me. I’m traveling for myself. Having always been on a trajectory that was never my own, I finally feel, in Maine, a little bit free. Deep in the rural, remote forest, on my way to Jackman, a western village known for its moose hunters, the weight of my past, the grief of my father’s death, the shackles of DC society, and the noose of inescapable technology cannot reach me. Maine is verdant heaven.

On the remote dirt road ahead of me, rays of autumn sunlight pierce the tiny gaps in the canopy of timber trees. The quiet of the surrounding woods is disrupted only by my truck, hard at work navigating the potholes, gravel, and dirt of the private logging road deep inside a working forest in the north-central part of the state. Chamberlain, riding shotgun, peers over at me with his big brown eyes. Then he wags his curly pug tail at me and stares out the window.

Vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges are on the trees. Foliage season is starting, a brush of color in a massive swirl of dark green. A real sense of wildness in these woodlands. At times, trimmed-back parts of the forest, areas that have been logged, allow for glimpses of a river that rushes alongside the road. With my truck window down, I can make out the forceful yet calming sound of the running water. Even Chamberlain is impressed. He’s joined me because we were inspired by John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Also, I felt it appropriate he saw the home state of his namesake: Civil War hero Union general Joshua Chamberlain. Truthfully, though, I need him by my side. Even on my first solo adventure, I cannot go it totally alone.

I guess that’s why I drive the old truck too. Dad and I took it on a few road trips. Old pens of his still sit in the center console. His handwriting marks registration on an envelope in the glove box. He took care of the truck for me when I went off to college: starting it up every day in the winter, getting it washed and gassed up before I came home. Big, tough, and dependable, his spirit is inside the cab, watching over me and probably quite concerned.

His only son has never been this unpredictable. I see his frame lodged into the front seat, his hand reaching for the center emergency brake that does not exist on this truck, as if he could stop me from hurting myself. Take it easy on the turn, watch that pothole, brake slow. To avoid this paternal cautiousness, I’d played something for us to get lost to on the radio. And that’s what I think of now. This week the field for the Major League Baseball playoffs has been set. Dad and I could listen to baseball on the radio for hours together. I fire up a baseball podcast I’d downloaded earlier. And as I listen on this October day in Maine, I’m taken back to a day in Baltimore some twenty-two years before.

Programs, get your programs. Five dollars. Pencil included. Programs! The vendor yells from his booth elevated just above the crowd streaming into Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The cathedral of the retro design parks has recently opened, and most every game has sold out. Dad has season tickets, a point of pride for a man who as a boy was lucky to attend one MLB game per year—on his birthday, making the three-hour drive to Cleveland from Buffalo. Now, in 1994, as host of Meet the Press, he fits as many games as possible into his busy schedule. Holding my eight-year-old hand ever tighter, Dad fights his way through the sea of people. He gets claustrophobic in crowds. Though I know this, I ask him to stop for a second.

Dad, may I get a program, please?

He can’t hear me over the noise of the crowd.

I yank on his hand.

What? What is it? He stares down at me, wiping a mix of sweat and sunscreen from his eyes.

A program. Can I get a program?

We trek back toward the booth. He bends over so I can hear his voice more clearly. I’ll get you this program, but you have to promise to work on your reading. I want you to read it to me aloud between innings. Is that a deal?

Excitedly, I nod my head.

He hands the vendor a five-dollar bill, then places the program in my outstretched palm. I see the smiling faces of Orioles stars Cal Ripken Jr. and Brady Anderson on the cover. I know I’ll tape it to my wall when I get home. For now, I hold it like a loaf of bread. We work our way back through the crowd. A few steps behind, holding Dad’s hand, I keep my eyes affixed to the back of his white polo shirt. The outline of his wallet is visible through his back pants pocket, stained into the old khakis. A hanky to wipe his brow creeps out of the other pocket. He clips his beeper tightly to his belt—it’s his post-work Sunday casual uniform. As we move faster through the horde, the sweat on our palms intensifies in the humid mid-Atlantic summer day. For a second, his grip slips and we become disconnected. I fall back a few feet as people aggressively pass by.

I never lose sight of the man in the white shirt. Immediately Dad turns around, his face concerned but focused. He jogs back and grabs my hand tight, locking his big thumb and fingers around my wrist. He pulls me in. His other hand now sits across my shoulder, a protective hold. Buddy, if we’re ever separated, just look for me there, he says, pointing at a hot dog stand with a big, memorable Oriole bird logo.

He pauses and looks me up and down. But we won’t ever be separated.

PART 1

ONE

June 13, 2008

I glance down at a familiar number on my phone, one that traces back to NBC News in Washington. Probably Dad checking in. I slip outside the crowded Florentine bar, passing a throng of Italians cheering their squad in a European Championship soccer match. My girlfriend, Jeanie, sits at the table, beer in hand, eyes transfixed on the digital camera pictures we took today of the statue of David. As I answer the call, I can see her through the bar’s window.

Luke, is your mom there? my dad’s assistant, calling from Washington, asks.

No, she’s at the hotel nearby. Does Dad need her?

Well. Um. Well, we just can’t get ahold of her.

I think she’s getting ready for dinner. I can find her. What’s going on?

Um, it’s that, it’s um, well . . . I can tell she is searching for words. Your dad fainted and he’s on his way to the hospital.

Fainted?

Yes. Can you please get your mom to call us back here? Your dad’s office line.

I know Tim Russert better than anybody, and Tim Russert does not faint. I suspect Dad is dead.

It’s June 13, 2008, I’m twenty-two years old, and right now it feels like the world is slowing down and speeding up at the same time. I furiously knock on the window to get Jeanie’s attention. We’ve got to go now! My voice carries beyond the glass. The look on my face is enough for her not to question why.

Jeanie and I joined my mom, Maureen Orth, on vacation following my graduation from Boston College last month. Dad was with us in Rome two days ago, our last day together as a family spent at the Vatican. He then went back to Washington to tape Meet the Press on Father’s Day.

What’s happening? Jeanie asks now.

I’m flushed, but I get the words out. That was NBC in DC. Something happened to my dad. He fainted or something. We need to find my mom.

Isn’t she out to dinner with those Italian friends of hers?

I glance at my watch. It’s dinnertime, but, knowing Mom, there’s a good chance she’s late and just now walking out the door. I begin to run quickly up the street, Jeanie following behind. She grasps at my shirt to keep up.

I need to find my mother before anybody else does.

Inside the hotel we take the stairs. No time for the ancient elevator. In front of Mom’s room, I pound the door, desperate. It opens quickly. Mom stands there, dressed fashionably, pulling out the sleeves of her blazer jacket to smooth the wrinkles.

Luke, what is it? I’m late for dinner.

NBC is trying to reach you, I say between exasperated breaths. Check your phone. They just got me. Dad fainted at the bureau.

He fainted? What does that mean? She understands the same thing I did: Tim Russert doesn’t faint. Fainting is laughable for a man who prides himself on his durability and his work ethic, who reads six newspapers a day while pumping the pedals on his stationary bike and listening to Bruce Springsteen. To prepare for weekly interviews, Dad has sheaves of news packets mailed and faxed to our home every day, sometimes twice a day. He outworks everyone. He takes work seriously. It is his duty. To faint on the job would be to disgrace it.

I’ll call NBC now, Mom says. Stay close to me.

Jeanie leaves the room. Instinctually, she knows it’ll be just mother and son facing the news of the next hour.

I sit on the couch as Mom calls the NBC desk. My eyes fixate on the ridges of the wooden coffee table. It’s Friday, midday in Washington, DC, and I’d spoken to Dad just hours ago. He phoned me from my apartment. Ever the kind and doting dad, he’d gone over to set up the cable TV and Wi-Fi. A nice head start before the arduous task of moving from Boston College back to Washington. The conversation we had runs through my mind. It had all seemed so normal.

Buddy, I’m over here at your place. This green thing. The Nintendo box?

You mean the Xbox?

Yeah. This guy here, he can hook it up to the TV audio system. He’s going to leave you directions on how to get it going. I think it’s best that he does it. These new systems are complex.

Sounds good, Dad. I appreciate it.

Of course you do. A slight tone of sarcasm comes through the phone. You’re off palling around Italy and dear old Dad is back at the fort, getting things done. Working! Working hard for the money! Enjoy your time in Europe. Just how I grew up! He chuckles mightily at the last line. When Dad graduated from college, after paying his own way, his summer was spent working on the garbage trucks of South Buffalo, New York, trying to make enough money to go to law school. A far cry from the privileged life he’s bestowed on me: a monthlong European vacation.

Thanks, Dad. I really do appreciate it. I wasn’t lying. The guy was doing me a solid, which very well could be the story of the first twenty-two years of my life—Dad guiding me, taking care of me, and, on this Friday before Father’s Day, doing the thing he loved most in the world: providing.

Okay, buddy, I’m going to get back to this. Talk later.

I wonder if that’s the last conversation we’ll ever have.

It is.

Listen to me: Is he dead? Did he die? Mom asks. Just tell me!

Somebody at the hospital confirms the news. A fatal heart attack, a type known as the widow maker. Mom sinks back into her chair. She has been perked up at the desk, pen in hand, taking notes about the details. She is a celebrated journalist in her own right, a special correspondent at Vanity Fair, and till that moment she remarkably remains in reporter mode. But when the confirmation comes, the terrible truth sinks in. Tears stream down her face. She puts the phone down and motions for me to come over. We hug. She doesn’t say a word. Mom does not wail. Not once. My throat chokes up, but I have to say it; I need to face this horrific reality, this new normal. He’s gone.

Mom nods her head. I don’t feel pain. Just shock. It’s the beginning of somehow trying to accept that our world has forever changed.

The news business never stops. Through tragedy, death, despair, or dysfunction—the news goes on. Even when an autocrat tries to censor it, somehow, some way, the news gets out. Those in the business know this truth, how it’s not just part of the game, it is the game. For that reason, I do not consider it odd that no more than five minutes after finding out that Dad has died a higher-up at NBC News calls my phone.

Luke. I’m so sorry about Tim, and I’m sorry to have to say this. His pain is real, as is his empathy. We want to control this story. We want to report it first. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that somebody at the hospital could leak it. It could be out of our hands. Please alert your relatives as to what happened. They need to hear from you, not us. We need to get on air as soon as possible.

Mom overhears the conversation and jumps into action. She grabs the phone from my hands and yells, This news should absolutely be held back from the public until our family has been notified! Tim’s father cannot find out from a news bulletin flashing across his TV that his only son has died. If the news breaks before we can phone everyone, mark my words, I will never forgive you!

I sit next to her as she rings my dad’s sisters, Bea, Kiki, and Trish, and then her own family. Once somebody is sitting with my grandpa, Big Russ, she rings him. On each call she cuts to the point but maintains her empathetic grace. This strength inspires me. When she’s done, she tells me to give the network the green light.

I call back the executive.

Our family has been notified. Go ahead.

It’ll be Tom.

Tom Brokaw, the legendary former anchor of NBC Nightly News, was exceptionally close to Dad, one of his best friends. There is no better choice.

By the grace of God, my mother and I cannot see the report in real time. NBC News doesn’t reach Florence, Italy, and social media apps are not yet as ubiquitous and invasive as they will be in the years ahead. This turns out to be an enormous blessing. In the hours after Dad’s death, our news updates are the phone calls of friends and not an endless stream of politicians and fellow journalists offering up remembrances on Twitter or the national airwaves. Instead we find ourselves, mother and son, walking the streets of the beautiful Renaissance-era city on a perfect summer night—phones off, only each other to lean on as we peer down at the Arno River and try to catch our breath.

Want to get a drink? Talk this out? This is probably the last time we’ll have for ourselves in quite a while.

That’s a good idea, Mom.

We duck into a lobby bar of some nearby hotel. The crush of death is still raw but not quite all-consuming. At that table we pledge our loyalty, affirm our love, and make a pact of strength and togetherness as a family. Our grieving will be dignified. Our attention will go toward honoring Dad’s legacy and picking up the spirits of those as sad as us. Mom mentions we are blessed. Now is the time to rely on our Catholic faith. We hold hands and say a Hail Mary.

Once back at our hotel, I beg my mother to sleep. We have an early morning flight, and chaos will greet us upon landing. I keep my phone off and get into bed. Jeanie has been a saint during this entire process and holds back her emotions so as to not upset me. It’s lying next to each other in that bed, staring up at the beige ceiling and processing the events of the day, when reality hits me.

I’ll never speak to Dad again. He is gone.

I burst into tears, clutch the pillow, and scream into the night. Jeanie holds me and reminds me to breathe in between my hysterical wheezing. I cry about losing my best friend. I cry for the grandchildren he’ll never meet. I cry for all the lessons ahead that I know I needed to learn but will not receive from his calm and trusting voice. I cry knowing the fabric of my being is forever torn. I cry because he never got to see the Bills win a Super Bowl.

When we land in DC, the whirlwind begins. Mom and I are whisked into an airport meeting room. Copies of various newspapers lie on the table; Russert Dead reads a headline. NBC executives and producers gently ask us questions about funeral planning. It becomes apparent: Mom and I aren’t burying just a husband and a father but a giant of a man. From the preparations already underway, it begins to sound like a state funeral. Tim Russert’s death is being felt well beyond his home. There is a national outpouring, unexpected by us and, in its own way, intensely comforting.

When we get home, I walk through the kitchen door. My high school classmates from St. Albans are there waiting. I’m an only child, so they’re like my brothers. My friend Auguste, tall, broad, and muscular, a terrific athlete who played football at the University of Virginia, grabs the back of my neck and pulls me close. I weep into his shoulder, enough to soak his shirt. I look around the room—so many sad eyes, but so many people seem to be looking to me for guidance. I tell myself this is the last time I’ll cry hard. I want to pick people up. Plus, it’s apparent from the questions posed in that conference room that there’s no time to cope. Any energy that could go toward grief is going toward logistics. Where will he be buried? When will the funeral be? Where will it be? How will the viewing work? Who will speak?

Two days after Dad’s death, Mom and I sit in our living room with our local priest. Who is going to do the eulogy? he asks.

I look at Mom and speak before she has a chance to. That would be me, Father. I know I can do it. I can maintain composure and hopefully leave people uplifted and not saddened. Plus, writing the eulogy will be my way to honor the man who was so much more than just my father.

I retreat to my empty DC apartment and turn off my cellphone. This space is where Dad was on the day of his death, setting up my cable box and Wi-Fi. The lights on them blink, reminding me they’re alive. The place is barren now but for appliances and some counter stools: the wired TV, the lasting relic of his short time inside the space; the Xbox he asked about, now plugged in. I throw a six-pack of beer in the fridge and stare at my laptop. To ground myself, I title the page, Dad’s Eulogy. A phrase beyond surreal to type.

I stand up and pace.

Where can I turn for help in writing the most important words of my life?

It dawns on me. Why not the man himself? I remember he had written about loss. I rush out to grab a copy of Big Russ and Me, my dad’s memoir. In it he talks about death through the prism of faith:

The importance of faith, and of accepting and even celebrating death, was something I continue to believe as a Catholic and a Christian. To accept faith, we have to resign ourselves as mortals to the fact that we are a small part of a grand design.¹

He continues in the chapter:

We can’t withstand major crises and the huge changes they bring about alone. We are not strong enough. We really aren’t. When people are confronted with a crisis, particularly the death of a loved one, the most important thing is to reach out to them. Help them, because they can’t go through their loss alone. It is inexplicable in their lives at that time. You have to be there for them and help them to understand, There is something here to accept. This is out of your control; this is a power far beyond yours.²

Dad does not leave me alone in the apartment. I feel he is showing himself. Almost immediately I internalize his spirit. Perhaps he is writing through me or there is a more divine connection. The words flow out. I write at a level of focus I’ve never reached before. The writing is continuous. When done, I give it a look over. I don’t know where it came from, but there it is. I crack two beers. I toast the man and thank him.

Where are all those people going? I ask. Is there a service at the National Cathedral today? I notice a long line snaking around the block by St. Albans School, which is located at the base of the grand church.

The funeral director riding in the front seat of the black car looks confused. The hearse carrying Dad moves along ahead of us.

No, Luke, those people are here for the wake. They’re here for your dad.

They’re here for the wake?! Mom is stunned too.

The line must be a mile long. My eyes start to well up as I look at the people through the tinted glass. All ages, genders, races, and creeds. It’s the American quilt.

The casket comes into the school through a side entrance. My closest friends escort it as I trot behind. It lies in the school’s rectory behind two large bouquets of white flowers. Mom, along with me and the rest of our extended family, stands behind in prayer. When the blessing is done, an official-looking person in a suit walks over. I don’t recognize him. Luke, just wanted to let you know President Bush and the First Lady will be arriving shortly.

We have heard that somebody from the White House was going to pay their respects, but we did not know that it was going to be the president. The sirens from the motorcade are within earshot. The president and Mrs. Bush walk in, escorted by one of my old teachers. President Bush, famous for giving nicknames, has one for me. Big Luke! Come here, brother. He brings me in for a bear hug. So sorry, your dad was a good man.

Thank you, sir.

Mom and I pray with them. She holds their hands. They then follow us to the school library to meet the rest of our family. President Bush stays for an hour and greets every single Orth and Russert.

Thank you for the time, sir, I say.

My honor, says President Bush.

The son of a garbage man, getting a US president to his wake? I can hear Dad mouthing, What a country.

Soon after the president leaves,