Tony Snow, RIP

I’m late to the very sad news of Tony Snow’s passing.

A good man gone too young, too soon. He had a wonderful way about him and a great deal of common sense. One of my favorite pieces by him was his Commencement Address to the Catholic University of America in May of 2007. He was in the middle of his battle with cancer when he gave it, and it holds some gems of insight:

Think not only of what it means to love but what it means to be loved. I have a lot of experience with that. Since the news that I have cancer again, I have heard from thousands and thousands of people and I have been the subject of untold prayers. I’m telling you right now: You’re young [and you feel] bullet-proof and invincible. [But] never underestimate the power of other people’s love and prayer. They have incredible power. It’s as if I’ve been carried on the shoulders of an entire army. And they had made me weightless. The soldiers in the army just wanted to do a nice thing for somebody. As I mentioned, a lot of people — everybody out here — wants to do that same thing.

To love is to place others before you and to make their needs your priority. Do it. When you put somebody else at the center of the frame, your entire world changes, and for the better. You begin to find your own place in the world. When you’re drawn into the lives of others, you enter their problems, their hopes, their dreams, their families. They whisk you down unimagined corridors, toward possibilities that had been hidden to you before. So resolve to do little things for others. You don’t know where they’re going to lead but then again, you don’t have any idea where your life is going to lead. When I was your age, I had long hair, a beard and thought of myself as a socialist. You are going to pinball all over the place, from experience to experience, job to job. And I want you to remember that you’ve got company. And that if you engage them with heart and mind, with faith and energy, you are going to find yourself on a cresting wave. It’ll carry you forward and it’ll push you under water from time to time. And some day in the dim and distant future, when you’re looking back at it, you’re not going to think about your car or your career or your gold watch. You’ll think about a chewed-up teddy bear you had as a baby or maybe your child’s smile on a special Christmas morning. The only things that are sure to endure are the artifacts of love. So go out and build as many as you can.

Like Tim Russert, Snow was a class-act. We needed both of them to stick around longer, to help us find some sanity in an increasingly senseless society.

His thoughts on the unexpected blessings of cancer. H/T Delynn

I’m sorry for the Snow family, in their trouble, and pray for all.

Rick Moran remembers Gentleman Tony Snow

Also writing:
Ed Morrissey
Kim at Wizbang
Huffpo
Michelle Malkin
Doug Ross(Roundup)
J’s Cafenette
Ace
Gateway Pundit
Newsbusters
Fr. Steve