Beloved Fox News commentator and Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Krauthammer passed away Thursday, and his friends and colleagues immediately began to eulogize the legend on Twitter.
Among all the personal anecdotes — many from current and former Fox News personalities — one simple tweet from Time Magazine’s Nash Jenkins stood out. He said, “I would like to share a story about Charles Krauthammer.”
What followed was Nash’s own personal story of pain and loss, and of the comforting words that came at exactly the right time from exactly the right person: Krauthammer himself.
In October 2016, my dad met Krauthammer and Robert Reich at a thing in Washington. I’m not sure exactly what the thing was, but they chatted for awhile after. My dad’s a geek for this stuff, so he got a photo and posted it to Instagram. pic.twitter.com/ATS6hanRiN
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
Until I saw that photo, I’d had no idea that Krauthammer was in a wheelchair. I just knew him as the pundit that conservatives of an older generation (like my dad) revered.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
I looked it up and learned that in his first year of medical school at Harvard, Krauthammer was in a swimming accident that left him largely paralyzed. Despite this, he found success as a psychiatrist and then as a political writer.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
“Still,” I remember thinking, “how sad.”
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
On June 25 of last year, I was living in Hong Kong. I got a FaceTime call shortly after midnight from my mom back home in North Carolina. I almost didn’t answer. “Everything is okay, but your dad’s been in an accident,” she told me.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
My dad is now 56, but up until that point he had been pathologically active — in this case, he was surfing in Nicaragua. A wave had crashed on him and slammed him to the bottom. He quickly realized he couldn’t move.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
To abbreviate a long story that’s still very painful: after a 48-hour trip from the jungle to Managua to the neurosurgical hospital at UNC, my dad learned that he had broken his neck and severed his spinal cord.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
He was and remains paralyzed from the chest down; doctors told him very candidly that he’d never walk again.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
For my sisters and me, those first two weeks remain foggy — those memories are shrouded in a patina of grief, confusion, fear, and, in my case, jetlag (I’d flown back from Hong Kong once we realized the severity of the injury.)
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
But what I do remember is the email Charles Krauthammer sent my dad. I’d like to share it here. pic.twitter.com/FO6hMJvjwz
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
There is no playbook for coping with spinal cord injuries. They’re statistically rare. Support networks are limited at best. But in a year that has been defined by uncertainty and emotional exhaustion, that letter has meant the world to my dad and to us
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
I always wanted to thank Mr. Krauthammer for that, and am ashamed that I never did. It was a voice of lucid hope at a time when my family needed it more than anything. I will always be so grateful for it.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
Anyway, I’m a wreck now (as I’ve been for much of the last twelve months but who’s counting lol). Monday marks a year since my dad’s injury and I love him so much.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
I guess I don’t really care about his politics right now — there will be others to eulogize and critique. I’m writing this because Charles Krauthammer knew what to say at a time when virtually no one did, and he took the time to say it, and it meant so so much.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) June 21, 2018
R.I.P. Charles Krauthammer, 1950-2018.