Mourning a man he never met, and Dad, and the lost art of political civility

I never met him, but Mark Shields was a hero to me.

His passing hits home because, as one Irishman to another, my father loved his humor, humanity and scorn for snobbery.

When someone dies who was cherished by a loved one you’ve lost, it triggers a process both poignant and pregnant.

All at once, you grasp that, perhaps without conscious recognition, part of your loved-one had been living on through them. And now that part is gone, too.

In losing a link to the one whom we lost, a little bit more of them dies. We experience an aftershock, an echo, of death, loss and grief.

I first took note of the PBS NewsHour in college at the University of Southern California; my dad watched it after work each night.

This was the time of the Los Angeles riots, Ross Perot and the Clinton era.

I vividly remember Shields’ trenchant comments on the Anita Hill hearings: “Then, Thomas played the race card.”

Since those days, the program has shaped my education in politics and current events, providing impactful reporting on important stories in our nation and in the world, expert analysis from differing perspectives and a check on my own political prejudices.

Most of all, the NewsHour has given me a moral lens to interpret, judge and — sometimes — forgive the world. The commentary of Mark Shields represented the show at its finest.

For years, especially recently with the escalation of toxic polarization and the disintegration of a shared reality of facts, the weekly Friday Shields and Brooks segment was my political North Star.

The razor sharp yet collegial discussion between a liberal and a conservative, served with a healthy dose of humor, was precisely the tonic I needed to begin the weekend, calming my nerves and restoring my confidence in a world of facts, truth and human civility.

David Brooks notes in a NewsHour tribute, “As Donald Trump came along, we scarcely disagreed at all.” Aside: I am both proud and grateful to have shared these sentiments with Brooks himself when he visited the Kansas Leadership Center in 2019.

Shields’ admiration for public service — for the women and men who make personal sacrifices in devoting their professional lives to serving our country — has shaped my own.

And while I cannot match his faith in the essential goodness of politics — its power to solve problems and improve lives — I have discovered no alternative to rebut or rebuke it. Thus, I respect his faith, and aspire to it.

Thank you for your dedication to our country, Mark, for serving as half of my North Star for 30 years, and for providing a formative part of the civics education my father stewarded to me, even though you never met him.

Aside from philosophy, I haven’t read much about death.

What I say here may well be covered in the vast literature of memoirs of mourning and remembrance. If so, there is nothing original in this tribute.

But since I have never read or heard anyone else describe this “ripple effect” of secondary grief and loss, it feels worth recording, should it speak to others.

When Mark Shields left us, I lost part of my dad.

Again. I miss you, Dad, every day.

Sam Smith is director of communications for the Kansas Leadership Center