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06-09-2018 09:30 AM
I'm so sorry to hear this and I had noticed the last few times I'd seen him, he seemed to be struggling quite a bit.
I too get saddened and perplexed by those who struggle and fight every day to live (my dad was one of those), vs those that want out.
I hope his final times are peaceful and comfortable.
06-09-2018 09:32 AM - edited 06-09-2018 09:37 AM
@ms traditional wrote:@Its Me LuLuBelle2 you aren't alone. you may want to look at this ongoing thread. many of us are saddened by this news.
https://community.qvc.com/t5/TV-and-Movies/Charles-Krauthammer-Cancer-Diagnosis/m-p/4701942#M273216
Many of us have been posting there and I am grateful that it has remained respectful. Some beautifully written posts.
@ms traditionalwas kind enough to include a link to Charles Krauthammer: A Life That Matters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4fQN1Czu_Q&feature=youtu.be
06-09-2018 09:37 AM
This is the letter that was issued yesterday.
6/8/18
I have been uncharacteristically silent these past ten months. I had thought that silence would soon be coming to an end, but I’m afraid I must tell you now that fate has decided on a different course for me.
In August of last year, I underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in my abdomen. That operation was thought to have been a success, but it caused a cascade of secondary complications which I have been fighting in hospital ever since. It was a long and hard fight with many setbacks, but I was steadily, if slowly, overcoming each obstacle along the way and gradually making my way back to health.
However, recent tests have revealed that the cancer has returned. There was no sign of it as recently as a month ago, which means it is aggressive and spreading rapidly. My doctors tell me their best estimate is that I have only a few weeks left to live. This is the final verdict. My fight is over.
I wish to thank my doctors and caregivers, whose efforts have been magnificent. My dear friends, who have given me a lifetime of memories and whose support has sustained me through these difficult months. And all of my partners at The Washington Post, Fox News, and Crown Publishing.
Lastly, I thank my colleagues, my readers, and my viewers, who have made my career possible and given consequence to my life’s work. I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking. I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation’s destiny.
I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.
06-09-2018 09:41 AM
I don't know if you're familiar with this Krauthammer essay, but it's one of my favorites.
Of Dogs and Men
By Charles Krauthammer Tuesday, June 10, 2003
The way I see it, dogs had this big meeting, oh, maybe 20,000 years ago. A huge meeting — an international convention with delegates from everywhere. And that's when they decided that humans were the up-and-coming species and dogs were going to throw their lot in with them. The decision was obviously not unanimous. The wolves and dingoes walked out in protest.
Cats had an even more negative reaction. When they heard the news, they called their own meeting — in Paris, of course — to denounce canine subservience to the human hyperpower. (Their manifesto — La Condition Feline — can still be found in provincial bookstores.)
Cats, it must be said, have not done badly. Using guile and seduction, they managed to get humans to feed them, thus preserving their superciliousness without going hungry. A neat trick. Dogs, being guileless, signed and delivered. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I must admit that I've been slow to warm to dogs. I grew up in a non-pet-friendly home. Dogs do not figure prominently in Jewish-immigrant households. My father was not very high on pets. He wasn't hostile. He just saw them as superfluous, an encumbrance. When the Cossacks are chasing you around Europe, you need to travel light. (This, by the way, is why Europe produced far more Jewish violinists than pianists. Try packing a piano.)
My parents did allow a hint of zoological indulgence. I had a pet turtle. My brother had a parakeet. Both came to unfortunate ends. My turtle fell behind a radiator and was not discovered until too late. And the parakeet, God bless him, flew out a window once, never to be seen again. After such displays of stewardship, we dared not ask for a dog.
My introduction to the wonder of dogs came from my wife Robyn. She's Australian. And Australia, as lovingly recounted in Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, has the craziest, wildest, deadliest, meanest animals on the planet. In a place where every spider and squid can take you down faster than a sucker-punched boxer, you cherish niceness in the animal kingdom. And they don't come nicer than dogs.
Robyn started us off slowly. She got us a border collie, Hugo, when our son was about 6. She knew that would appeal to me because the border collie is the smartest species on the planet. Hugo could 1) play outfield in our backyard baseball games, 2) do flawless front-door sentry duty, and 3) play psychic weatherman, announcing with a wail every coming thunderstorm.
When our son Daniel turned 10, he wanted a dog of his own. I was against it, using arguments borrowed from seminars on nuclear nonproliferation. It was hopeless. One giant "Please, Dad," and I caved completely. Robyn went out to Winchester, Va., found a litter of black Labs and brought home Chester.
Chester is what psychiatrists mean when they talk about unconditional love. Unbridled is more like it. Come into our house, and he was so happy to see you, he would knock you over. (Deliverymen learned to leave things at the front door.)
In some respects — Ph.D. potential, for example — I don't make any great claims for Chester. When I would arrive home, I fully expected to find Hugo reading the newspaper. Not Chester. Chester would try to make his way through a narrow sliding door, find himself stuck halfway and then look at me with total and quite genuine puzzlement. I don't think he ever got to understand that the rear part of him was actually attached to the front.
But it was Chester, who dispensed affection as unreflectively as he breathed, who got me thinking about this long-ago pact between humans and dogs. Cat lovers and the pet averse will just roll their eyes at such dogophilia. I can't help it. Chester was always at your foot or your hand, waiting to be petted and stroked, played with and talked to. His beautiful blocky head, his wonderful overgrown puppy's body, his baritone bark filled every corner of house and heart.
Then last month, at the tender age of 8, he died quite suddenly. The long, slobbering, slothful decline we had been looking forward to was not to be. When told the news, a young friend who was a regular victim of Chester's lunging love-bombs said mournfully, "He was the sweetest creature I ever saw. He's the only dog I ever saw kiss a cat."
Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it produces a vision — a creature — of the purest sweetness?
06-09-2018 09:46 AM
Every once in awhile a person comes along and teaches us about living life to the best of your potential, regardless of what may come your way.
Every once in a while a person comes along and teaches us how to present our own opinions with clarity, truth, and the grace to recognize when we are wrong.
No matter what anyone believes, I find it will be very, very hard to find a person who will be able to find one negative thing about Dr. Krauthammer.
He was the biggest reason for me to tune into FOX; when he would not be on I would be disappointed.
Dr. Krauthammer will be leaving behind so much more than his observations about our world; he will be leaving a lesson about life.
May Dr. Krauthammer be cared for in comfort during these last days; and may his wife and son find comfort in the love he has for them.
Thank you sir for being you.
06-09-2018 09:58 AM
Dr. Charles Krauthammer was beyond brilliant. It's so sad with so many people choose to end their lives.....and here is a man who valued life. I am heart broken and will miss him on FOX news.
06-09-2018 10:12 AM
Brilliant mind, brilliant life.
06-09-2018 11:21 AM
@just bee i love that piece on dogs -- also recommend the piece he wrote at the passing of his brother, "Marcel My Brother" -- a reminiscence with a punch. what a sensitive soul and talented writer. i'd link but worry about copyright.
06-09-2018 01:13 PM
I feel the same way as so many others about this incredible man.
This truly makes me sad.
06-09-2018 01:15 PM
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