Life, Death and Politics: A Memoir of Courage

Tom knew his time was limited, and he lived his life as best he could in the face of mounting physical limitations. He belonged to the Gridiron Club, a group of journalists who each year stage a musical roast of politicians and the press. He had performed before presidents Clinton and Bush, produced numerous skits and twice served as music chairman. He loved the Gridiron, and the Gridiron loved him. In the spring of 2004, just months before he enrolled in hospice and already greatly weakened by cancer, he got up onto the stage and belted out the rock-and-roll tune "Tutti Frutti," in a parody tribute to former New York mayor and 9/11 hero Rudy Giuliani. I sat in the audience terrified for Tom that he would just keel over, but he pulled it off with spirit and style.

Those watching did not know he had spent the previous night retching, ending what he referred to as his thirty-record. It was the first time he had thrown up since he was in the army. This was new. He suffered from low-grade nausea and a lack of appetite, but until now he had been spared the worst of that particular side effect. He consulted with his doctor, who advised he get his electrolytes checked before risking anything strenuous. There was no time for that. Tom's solution was to not eat anything all day Saturday and grit it out.

He came back the next day for the traditional Sunday reprise for friends and family. That night, the Gridiron gave him a standing ovation. For those who didn't know otherwise, he looked almost robust. Steroids prescribed to reduce swelling in the brain gave him a rosy glow to his face along with a sense of well-being and an increased appetite. He actually gained a few pounds, which created an artificial look of health. When people would tell him how good he looked, he would respond with the Billy Crystal line from "Saturday Night Live," "Better to look mahvelous than feel mahvelous."

Tom arranged for his cremation a full year before he died. The package was called "pre-need," a phrase I came to recognize watching "Six Feet Under." He handed me the envelope, which I stubbornly refused to open until I had to, and then I was grateful to have it. He also gave me a program from a memorial service that had been held at the National Press Club that I could use as an outline. The widow later sent me her exchange of e-mails with Tom in which he said he would like a memorial "celebration" like she had had for her husband. The word celebration did not come easily to me, but knowing that's what Tom wanted made all the difference.

March 30, 2005
The sun comes in my bedroom window well before six in the morning We'll soon move the clocks forward an hour, but until then I'm getting up with the first rays of light. I come downstairs this morning and notice that Tom is very still. [He sleeps on a hospital bed in the living room.] The bag that collects urine has not changed much since the night before. I push the thought away that he could have died. I don't want to face it, at least not yet. I am reassured when I see the sheet move slowly up and down. He must be breathing.

I partially shut the French doors leading into the living room like I have so many mornings, not wanting to disturb Tom and selfishly wanting to get my day started before I turn it over to his care. I go to the basement and ride ten miles on the stationary bike Tom had gotten me for my birthday, eat cereal for breakfast, feed the cats, feed the birds and the squirrels, and buzz up to Starbucks for an iced decaffeinated coffee, my normal morning routine. (In my telling and retelling of this momentous morning, a friend will gently advise, "Eleanor, leave out the part about Starbucks.") It has been my habit these last months to fortify myself with life's little pleasures before Tom is awake and the hospice caregiver arrives. I leave the door unlocked and a note on the stairs saying I'll be back in fifteen minutes, together with my cell phone number. I don't want anybody thinking I am slacking off.

[Back at home,] I am at the computer when the phone rings with a new health aide, Jordan Hammond. He's waiting outside and wondering if he should come in. I race down the stairs and greet him at the door and, to my surprise, blurt out, "He's not doing too well. I think he might be dead." The words tumble out, words I didn't intend to say, words that give voice to a thought that I have pushed from my mind all morning. How could he be dead? Hospice just delivered a new supply of drugs, including the giant bottle of Robitussin that in my mind had come to represent weeks more of life.

With me hovering a few feet away, Jordan takes but a moment to render his verdict. "Yes, indeed he is. He's already cold."

As I field phone calls and deal with letting people know, Tom lies peacefully in the living room. A friend, Bob Baggstrom, who had helped care for Tom these last months, arrives. He stands respectfully by the bedside for several minutes. A military man and a practicing Catholic, he tells me that he had performed last rites on Tom some time ago.

I start to talk to him as I move around the house. "Tom, where did I put my Diet Coke?" It is a question I often posed and it had become a running joke between us. He looks so much like he has these last weeks that I keep expecting him to move, but he's frozen still. I don't want him covered with the sheet yet, consigned to anonymity. I am not the least bit bothered that I have a dead body in my living room. This is Tom, and it doesn't feel all that different from the months of illness as he lay in that bed.

When the undertaker arrives, he brings a stretcher and a caramel-colored plastic body bag. He enlists our friend Bob to help lift Tom from the hospital bed onto the gurney and into the body bag. Tom is tall and his head cracks against the metal at one end of the gurney. The undertaker doesn't change expression, but I know that isn't something he wanted to happen. He begins to zip the bag closed and asks if I want to close the part over Tom's face. I say yes. I lean over and kiss Tom for the last time, and then pull the zipper shut. His lips don't feel all that different—a little cool, but not unlike the winter nights when we turned the heat down in the house and crawled under the blankets. Our long fight has come to an end.

March 31, 2005
The outpouring to Tom's death is overwhelming. I've got more than a dozen floral arrangements and fruit baskets in the living room plus two huge deli platters, enough to fortify a stream of mourners should I decide to hold a three-day wake. The truth is I don't know what to do. I don't have much experience with the rituals of dying. All I know is the living room looks terribly empty without the hospital bed, and the reality of what I've lost is beginning to sink in.

It's the week after Easter, and Congress along with much of official Washington is on recess. We had taped an "evergreen" (a show that didn't play off the week's events and in theory could run anytime) to air on this weekend's "McLaughlin Group." But the passing of Terri Schiavo plus the approaching death of Pope John Paul II make it too big a news week to go with the pretaped show. John calls me to see if I feel up to doing a show at our regular time on Friday afternoon. I don't see much point in staying home with the flowers and the cold cuts, much as I appreciate the expressions of sympathy. I welcome the chance to do what for me is normal—bat around the issues of the day in a highly charged political environment.

Admittedly, it's not standard fare for the grieving widow, and a friend who calls to see how I'm doing counsels me against popping up on television so soon after Tom's death. "It will further the impression of you as somebody with ice water in your veins," she says. Is that what people think of me? Because I get in there with the big boys and express my opinion, that I'm heartless? Maybe she's right; maybe I shouldn't do the show, I think. My son Woody, wanting to bolster me, goes to the Internet and plugs in two words—bereavement and widows—and downloads an article that tells me I'm okay, that grieving is individual, there are no rules. I see my son's reaction, which is basically, Go for it, Mom. If it's okay with him, how bad could it be? The incident reinforces my own instinct that for me, continuing my work life, my normal routine, is my salvation.

Terri's saga is issue 2 on that Friday's show. "Perhaps everything that can be said about Terri Schiavo's pilgrimage to death has been said," says John. "But more can be said about the impact of the Schiavo saga on public policy and politics. Question: What will be the impact on public policy and politics?"

Lawrence O'Donnell, who often takes a contrarian view, says, "There will be none. The story will disappear in the coverage of the pope and we won't get anything out of it," with one caveat. He would like to see an adjustment in marriage law. He says it's "utterly preposterous" that a spouse in name only like Michael Schiavo gets to decide whether Terri lives or dies.

Tony Blankley, too, is with the parents in the Schiavo case, but he's not with O'Donnell on shifting away from spousal rights. "For some of us who trust our wives more than anyone on the planet, I would want to have it there," he says.

I point out the debate is already under way in state capitols, and that President Bush when he was governor of Texas signed a law that allows hospital officials to remove a feeding tube over the wishes of a family if they conclude the treatment is futile. The debate is not new, but it gains momentum both to advance such remedies and to resist them, as we saw in the Schiavo debate. "Technology ensures that about 85 percent of us will face a decision something like this. And I think there is a continuum between life, when you want to prolong life, and when you want to begin to end it. And it's a very personal, individual decision."

They listen to me perhaps more respectfully, knowing what I've just been through. Pat Buchanan, upon seeing me in the greenroom before the taping, offers his sympathy, saying quite memorably, "You took a big hit, kid." It was heartfelt and kind and rakish all at once, like Humphrey Bogart in the movie "Casablanca," underscoring why Pat is so popular among both his ideological foes and friends.

John ends the segment with a "political repercussion scale," with zero meaning zero political repercussion from the Terri Schiavo saga and ten meaning "nuclear-scale repercussion politically." Buchanan says it's an eight or nine in terms of poisoning and polarizing American politics. I give it a six, with the advantage going to the Democrats. Blankley gives it a three. O'Donnell agrees with me, that it's a six. "I'll go with a six," McLaughlin booms, and the sixes win.

The show closes with a tribute to Tom that John prepared earlier. The producer tells me that he had planned to deliver it live but couldn't get through the read without his voice breaking up. Tom's picture appears on the screen as John announces "In memoriam: Another death occurred this week much closer to home, Tom Brazaitis, a member of this television family, Eleanor's husband. Tom was a gifted journalist, a generous man, a loving father and husband, a witty, talented athlete, singer and dancer, without a mean bone in his body. He was sick for a long time and died at home with his beloved Eleanor, who I asked to be with us today, which is what Tom would have wanted."

It was a beautiful farewell and Tom would have loved it.