INDCJournal: A Sad Day

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July 23, 2004

A Sad Day

Posted by Bill

Mort Kondracke's wife Millie has died of Parkinson's disease. He wrote about their struggle in a book titled Saving Millie, and has been a tireless champion of the search for a cure.

Michelle Malkin has an excerpt from a feature written about Mort and Millie's struggle:

In his book, Saving Millie, Kondracke said that, after the diagnosis, he determined to be a loving husband and help Millie fight the disease. "I decided that my career was now secondary as the purpose of my life. I did not know what helping Milly fight Parkinson's might involve, and I did not want to know. . . . I was afraid that if I had a forecast of how bad things could become I might shrink from the ordeal. I figured I would simply deal with whatever happened, as it happened.
...
I will, I must, play the hand that's dealt me and trust in God to help me do the right thing." Mort prays repeatedly throughout the day and reports that he asks God, "What's my purpose here?" He admits to hoping each time that there will be a new and important mission for him, but the answer, he says, is always, "Take care of Millie." In the process, Mort says, "I've become a different, better person -- someone I never expected to be. I have put someone else's happiness ahead of my own advancement."

Here's hoping that he continues his vital mission in a new way. R.I.P Millie, and my sincere condolences to the man that I have long considered the fairest and most respectable pundit on TV.

UPDATE: From the WaPo report:

Mrs. Kondracke, who counseled clients in private practice during the 1980s and 1990s and later turned to political activism to wrest medical research money from Congress, was the subject of the book "Saving Milly: Love, Politics and Parkinson's Disease" (2001).

In it, her husband, Roll Call executive editor Morton Kondracke quoted her testimony to the Senate Special Committee on Aging in 1995 about the ravages of the disease.

"I want to tell you that I live in fear every day that I won't be able to talk or walk, that I'll fall, that I'll be unable to move. I fear that my face will be frozen, that I won't be able to swallow. . . . I was never sick. I was always healthy. I didn't drink or smoke or eat too much. I exercised. But now I live in fear every single day of my life," she said.

Joan I. Samuelson, director of the Parkinson's Action Network, said Mrs. Kondracke had flashing brown eyes and the ability to project the personal toll exacted by the disease. She was "enormously consequential" as a lobbyist for increased funding for research into Parkinson's disease through the National Institutes of Health and for federal support for stem cell research, Samuelson said.

(Via Bit'sBlog)

Posted by Bill at July 23, 2004 12:31 PM | TrackBack (1)