So much has been written and said about our friend Ed Bell, that I don’t think anything I could add about his kindness and character is worthy. So instead, I am going to focus on this lesson, of many, I learned from him: Live to your very last breath.
That sounds counterintuitive, of course we breathe until we don’t any longer. But that doesn’t mean we’re living purposely. Ed did — live purposely— every single minute of his 84 years.
I didn’t know him for most of those years, really know him, though as a person in public life in the late 80s and 90s, I knew well who he was as a Boston media leader. It was in the last few years of Ed’s life that I got to know him beyond his reputation. And that our time together was one of being colleagues as well as friends is the heart of the lesson I learned from him.
Who has new colleagues and a new professional mission beginning in their 80s? Ed Bell.
Aren’t you supposed to be long-settled on your Florida lounge chair by then? Well he had that, too, but even from his occasional break in the Sunshine State, Ed was on Zoom calls and making tough calls for this newspaper that he helped conceive of, launch and nurture.
The Current was just one of Ed’s late-in-life endeavors. The list of other organizations around town he was not just involved in, but a leader of, is lengthy. All those entities will miss him but, dare I assert, not as much as we will. If the Current were a fireplace, Ed was the kindling, the logs, the flue, the chimney AND the person who knelt near and blew soft breaths to grow the flicker into a flame. Need I reach for another metaphor? You get it.
Of course health challenges are the scourge that limit way too many people in their later years. Not Ed. Even after being hospitalized for weeks this past fall, he fought his way back — to his home, to the boardroom, to his club, to his life. God, what grit.
At his funeral service, one of the speakers, Peter Casey, who worked with Ed in radio news in Boston, noted that when Ed took over as news director at WHDH, he eschewed the traditional executive perch along the windows, instead seating himself right in the newsroom where the action was. “Where the action was” could be his epitaph.
Some people take years of hard blows to achieve the aura of calm that comes from having seen it all. Ed always had that aura though, as was evident from folks who told stories of working with him years ago, and wow, were we at the Current the beneficiary.
Breaking news? Call Ed. Put it on the front page or inside? Call Ed. A publishing policy needs revision? Call Ed. Advertising or fundraising challenge? Call Ed.
Who are we going to call now? Each other. And do the best we can to channel him. WWED, our shorthand for “What would Ed do.”
I first wrote WWES — “What would Ed say” but right away hit the delete button. He didn’t just “say” as was his well-earned right. He’d already “done” plenty. But that wasn’t Ed. He was a doer, until his very last breath.
What a role model. What man of purpose. What an incredible human being. With any luck, I have another few decades ahead. There’s a lot to do. I better get going.
Virginia Buckingham is a member of the Marblehead Current’s Board of Directors, the former chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Port Authority, chief of staff to two Massachusetts governors, deputy editorial page editor for the Boston Herald and author of “On My Watch: A Memoir.”
Virginia Buckingham
Virginia Buckingham is a former president of the Marblehead Current board of directors, a frequent commentator on WCVB’s On the Record and author of “On My Watch A Memoir.” She is working on a second memoir, “As This Mountain” in her newly empty nest and writes a biweekly column for the Current.
