Missed Opportunities

My posts on LinkedIn are almost entirely insurance and business related, but I was inspired to post something a little different today.

Last week, my cousin’s wife mourned the death of her father. He was 91 at the time of his passing and left this world surrounded by his loved ones. He was both friendly and quiet and was most happy when he was spending time with his family. I enjoyed his company but truthfully, knew very little about him. In fact, I had probably met him only three or four times at various family events since his youngest daughter married my cousin. When we learned of his passing, my mother forwarded a link to what I thought was a standard obituary for a loved one. I clicked on the link and what I found left me dumbstruck. 

The reserved patriarch I knew from family get-togethers was Mr. Boyd to me but to the rest of the world, or at least those old enough to recall him, he was a journalist that lived a truly extraordinary life. Robert S. Boyd was fluent in six languages and spent the early years of his professional life working for the CIA. In 1953, he left the CIA and embarked on a career in journalism. Over the decades that followed, Robert Boyd built a career that was nothing short of epic. He was sent to Cuba in 1961 to cover the aftermath of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion with Fidel Castro as his tour guide. He was in Hanoi in 1970 covering the Vietnam War and personally accompanied Richard Nixon on his diplomatic trip to China in 1972 – the first such visit ever to that country by a sitting U.S. president. Earlier that same year, Robert Boyd broke a story that would end the political ambitions of George McGovern’s then vice-presidential running mate Thomas Eagleton; a story that would later earn Boyd and his partner a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. And these are just the more notable highlights.

After reading the final lines of the obituary, I sat there on my couch utterly stunned. I had been in the presence of greatness time after time and never knew it. I wondered to myself why he never mentioned anything about his life during our conversations but it was a question that was entirely rhetorical. It simply wasn’t in his nature to do so. Perhaps a better question would be, why didn’t I ever ask him about his life? The latter question and the one left unasked now haunts me. So I sit here today pondering how much I would have loved to learn about him first hand and the thousands of questions I would or should have asked. Sadly, I will never have that opportunity to learn about his life and his experiences. He took both of those with him when he left this world but perhaps there is one lesson I can still learn from him and my missed opportunity.

There are dozens, possibly even hundreds of people in my life about whom I know very little. Maybe it’s time I changed that. And to all of you reading this post today, I’d challenge you to reach out to someone in your life and learn about him or her. REALLY listen. REALLY learn. ASK. Don’t let those people leave this world without leaving something of themselves behind. They all have stories to tell and some of those stories are truly remarkable.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-boyd-journalist-shared-pulitzer-for-eagleton-shock-therapy-revelations-dies-at-91/2019/09/20/a8d03ef4-db1e-11e9-a688-303693fb4b0b_story.html