CLEVELAND — Tim Russert, the longtime moderator of NBC's "Meet The Press," was a herculean presence in news and culture. And his time in Cleveland helped shape him to become a broadcast journalism legend.
"[Cleveland] was the site of some of my father's most formative years," Russert's son Luke told 3News anchor Christi Paul in a recent interview. "This was the first time he ever left Buffalo. He came here...and ended up spending seven years here, four years at John Carroll, and three years at law school at Cleveland Marshall. And the school is just a wonderful representation, I feel, of the values that were instilled in my father about hard work, about community, and about listening and about understanding other people."
Luke was just 22 when his father passed away from sudden cardiac arrest in 2008. He has since visited his father's alma matter several times, and was in Cleveland just last week for a special screening of a new documentary, "Tim Russert: The John Carroll Years."
"Grief is hard. And I think we all experience it in our own ways," Luke told Christi. "When I was 22 and he passed, I threw myself immediately into a job that was preserving his legacy...and I did that for eight years. And there were many parts of the job that I really enjoyed, but there were some moments where I didn't feel fulfilled. I didn't know who I was independent of the job, independent of my last name, independent of the Washington bubble I grew up in. So I decided to take some time away."
One "reset" for Luke showed up in an unlikely way. He was working as an NBC correspondent in Washington, D.C., House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohioan, wanted a word with him. Luke figured Boehner was unhappy about media coverage, but it turns out he wanted to offer him some advice.
"He goes, 'I've seen you up here seven, eight years. You can do this job in your sleep. I've seen guys who are here 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and they never do anything else in life. Make sure that this is really what you want. Maybe it's a good idea to go out and learn a new skill, learn something else. Maybe it's a good idea to just learn about other people. Just do something that maybe breaks up this sense of duty that you've been on here and up here.'" Luke recalled. "And it struck me because Boehner is similar to my father in the sense that he came from a working class Russ Belt community, Catholic community, paid his way through school just like my dad. So it was a very perfect messenger, if you will. And that started to get the process going in my mind of, okay, if he's saying, maybe you should look inward for a second, I took it very seriously."
Seriously enough that Luke quit his job and spent three years traveling the globe trying to find himself. That’s when he realized he was running from his grief.
"I was finally being able to process the thoughts that were in my mind and the thoughts that were in my mind were always come back to who are you independent of the legacy? And secondly, have you accepted that he's really gone? And what does that mean for you?," Luke said. "And I made a point to turn off my phone. It was me and the journal and it would just come out. And what I realized is that the writing, while a lot of it was about the travel and where I was going, so much of it is I'm looking for something. And that's Dad. Where's Dad? Where's Dad? And it taught me to be more mindful and be aware that our lost loved ones are, they're there every day. They throw signs out for you. When my father passed away, close friend to his said to me, he's there. You just have to look for him."
Luke kept writing and in the loss of his father, a book was born. “Look for Me There; Grieving my Father, Finding Myself” is part of Luke's legacy now, chronicling his decision to leave the chaotic life of Washington news and learning to be still.
"I don't think anyone ever truly moves on," Luke told Christi, but you move forward in some capability. And for me moving forward was getting to a place of, I miss him, I love him, but I know more so than anything else, the last thing in the world he would ever want is for me to be full of pain and anguish regarding his passing."
You can learn more about Luke's memoir here, and more about Tim Russert's ongoing John Carroll legacy here.
