For the past two weeks, I’ve been without a computer, unable to write any blogs. Just because my computer has shut down, doesn’t mean my mind has, so I have been building this string of posts in my head, anxious to get to a computer.

When I got home to New York tonight at around 10 pm, my parents greeted me with smiles, hugs, and a tour of the newly renovated rooms that my father has been slaving over for the past month or so. It’s been an ongoing renovation, necessary for my parents to sell the house and get down to North Carolina, where they have been wanting to move to for quite some time now.

I had just started to go into the bathroom and my mom stopped me and said “did you hear the news?.” On the computer that line looks rather dry. But out of my mom’s mouth it came soft and somber. When you hear this out of someone, it’s hard to imagine what it could possibly be. I knew it wasn’t something too serious, or should i say seriously related to our family, or my mom wouldn’t have delivered it the way she did. But nevertheless, I knew I was about to hear something I didn’t want to hear.

“Tim Russert died today of a heart attack.”

When you hear something like that, it’s strangely equally as shocking as if it were someone close to you because it seems so random and unexpected.

I’m not going to pretend like I know Tim Russert. I don’t. But as many of you know I have been deeply in touch with politics for the past five months. For those of you who may not know, Tim Russert is the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He has also been a staple in journalism, particularly important in political coverage. That’s about as much as I knew about him. Sure I’ve seen him giving his opinion on just about every story being told on MSNBC, but I never really knew how important he has been in journalism.

I quickly turned on the television to find Keith Olbermann, red in the eyes, emotionally drained, a passion in his face much different than his usually anger towards Bill O’Reilly or Hillary Clinton. “Remembering Tim Russert” was the title of his show tonight. Every news channel on had coverage, tributes to someone I knew so little. It took the man’s death for me to see tribute after tribute and really learn more about him than I probably ever would have thought. I began to feel like he was my favorite journalist in Television. It’s like learning about a Grandfather, or father who has passed before you got to know them. Hearing stories and wanting to have the opportunity to be a part of it, but realizing you will never be there. I learned about his dedication to his family, how much he loved his father and called him “Big Russ.” I learned about his son Luke, how he just graduated from Boston College. I learned that he wrote a book called “Big Russ and Me,” with an Epilogue in the form of a letter to his son Luke. Videos upon videos of him with his father and son. I instantly began to see the impact that his passing has on his Wife, son, and father, as well as the colleagues of his that looked up to him with such admiration.

I learned that not only did he help make Bruce Springsteen famous, but The Boss was Tim Russert’s favorite rocker. They started a video tribute with some of Bruce’s songs playing in the background, and I started to cry. All this coming on the Friday before Father’s Day weekend.

Tim Russert didn’t teach me how to be an important journalist, he didn’t teach me how to give an interview. He didn’t play catch with me when I was little, and he didn’t take part as a role model in my life. But what he did do is go away on the same day that I came home to New York, on Father’s Day weekend. If Tim Russert gave me anything, tonight he gave me the reassurance that I love my dad and I cherish every day I have with him and will never take any day I have with him for granted.

Goodnight.