Saying it in the living time

Some of you knew my mentor, Leroy Sievers. Some of you saw his appearances on Nightline, NPR, The Discovery Channel. Some of you read his blog on NPR. For those of you who don't know, Leroy was a producer at Nightline when I was an intern there, back in 1998. I'm not sure why he took me under his wing. Maybe it was because he and his wife had no children. Maybe it was because my parents lived far away and I was an orphan in DC. Maybe it was because he saw my potential. I'm really not sure what his reason was, but I do know that at the end of my internship, when I had decided that I wanted to stay in DC and was looking for jobs as a waitress or bartender, Leroy walked me into the office of the News Director and asked if he would give me a full-time job. Pat Cullen, a former Bucknellian himself, gave me a job as a Desk Assistant and so began my career at ABC.

Three years later, after we had watched the twin towers come crashing down, I decided that it was time to leave ABC to try something different. I wanted to move to California and work in San Francisco. I was a lost soul and I wanted to find myself. I talked to Leroy and he called Tony Bonilla at KTVU. Leroy had been the News Director there years earlier and knew the scene. When I arrived in San Francisco a couple of weeks later, an assignment editor position was waiting for me.

Leroy and I would get together from time to time when I returned to Connecticut. I took Jill into New York to meet him when he was covering the DNC back in 2004. He was just recovering from Colon cancer and was rockin' and rollin' as Executive Producer of Nightline. He used to invite me and Joel to his Halloween parties at their house in Potomic. The idea was to dress as the best news story of the year. One year, Joel went as Dan Rather and I went as a steroid raging baseball player. Leroy, at 6'5" was dressed as a dodgeball.

Then, one night around Christmas about three years ago, I was engaged in a political debate with my boss from Thomson. Neither one of us could remember who spoke at what convention in what year. I called Leroy because I knew he would have the answer. When he picked up the phone, he sounded funny. I asked him if he was drunk. He laughed his big, booming belly laugh. Then he replied, "I'm at Johns Hopkins. They found a tumor in my brain. They're going to try to remove it."

From that moment, Leroy began a long, arduous battle with cancer. It attacked his spine, his lungs, his life in general. They gave him weeks. He took years. Leroy passed away in August - in his sleep. The loud booming laugh was silenced. The advice that he had always given would come no more. The stories of mai tais on the beach in Hawaii, flying kites on the mall and rollerskating on the boardwalk in Santa Barbara would live on in my memory.

His wife has been keeping up with the blog on NPR. Her post today, titled "Saying it in the living time" really moved me. I've posted it below and would welcome your comments and more importantly, your time to talk to the ones you love.

Saying it in the living time

It was a good old '60s love song. The kind that took you back to those last perfect days of summer.
When it was over, the DJ on the radio said, "It's so important to say it in the living-time. So there are no regrets."
The "it" is "I love you."
Say it in the "living time."
How many of us get so wrapped up in the chemo sessions and doctors' appointments and care-giving, that the "I love you's" get lost in the demands of the day?
What I wouldn't do to say that once more to Leroy -- in the "living time."