With great sadness …

The Boston Globe once called him “the great philosopher – statesman of the American nation.” And I can’t do better than that.

My mind drifts back many years to the day a largely unknown New York secretary of state Mario Cuomo came by WVOX for an interview. I’m afraid I kept him waiting for about 20 minutes (something he always kidded me about and never let me forget.) During that interview he looked across the microphone and, to make a point, said, “Look … even a Republican who doesn’t wear socks should be able to understand this.”

We had many late night and early morning conversations – not always about the great issues of the day – but often about our souls, our sons and our daughters, and life in general. I’m absolutely convinced that hundreds of years from today when the dust of centuries has settled over our cities, people will discover some of his magnificent and soaring speeches and say “There was … someone.”

His favorite word was “sweetness” … as in you can make a community stronger, wiser and – sweeter – than it is.

A well-known writer on religious issues once said, “Everything which proceeds from his bright, fine mind glistens with the sweat of moral conviction.”

He was there for the funerals of my mother, my brother and my stepson. And now I will pray at his.

I loved the man …