Earlier this week, Jade sent me a link to a YouTube clip of Wolf Blitzer relaying some sad news during his Situation Room broadcast about why Jack Cafferty wouldn’t be in for the Cafferty File that day. (I believe it was September 5.) Mr. Cafferty had just suffered an inconsolable loss after Carol, his wife of 35 years, had died suddenly.
Mr. Blitzer then went on to talk about Mr. Cafferty’s love for his wife. Which I think can be summed up best by Jade’s subject line to me: a sweet and sad tribute.
You see, Mr. Cafferty apparently loved Carol with all of his heart. You hope this would be the case for any married man, but we all know some loves transcend others. This appears to be one of those.
“My Wife, My Life”
Quoting from Cafferty’s book (which I think is It’s Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars, and Losers Who Are Hurting America), Blitzer read the dedication: To Carol. My wife, my life.
Blitzer emphasized how “Carol was everything to Jack” and read more passages from the book. In them, Cafferty revealed how he felt about his wife, and it was clear he regarded her very highly indeed.
Apparently at some point he’d had a drinking problem. It was because of Carol that he kicked it. As well as a smoking habit.
She was all the incentive I needed to make painful but transforming changes to get sober and stop smoking. I knew I’d lose her if I didn’t. She’s an amazing woman who simply wasn’t worth losing. ~-Jack Cafferty-~
In the passages Blitzer read, Jack also revealed how grounded his wife was and how she kept him from “getting full of helium and drifting off the surface of the earth.”
It takes a lot to admit you have flaws. But to put in writing how much gratitude you owe to someone else for making you be the best person you can be? That because of that person you’re better than you’d be on your own? That appealed to the romantic in me big time.
It’s hard enough to get most men to write anything, even just to sign a birthday card, but he made a point of addressing how his wife is his anchor in a book. And it was even poetically put. That’s love.
24 Karat Moment
Then Wolf went on to share a favorite story Jack liked to tell about himself and Carol. How they’d meet to have dinner before he went on air at a local station.
Apparently all he’d told Carol was he worked at a station. One day she asked what kind of gas station did he work at that he always needed to wear a tie. He claimed that was “one of his life’s 24 karat moments.”
He’d been on the air for four years. She had no clue who he was. She genuinely liked him for him, not for his image or fame. And she remained that way throughout their marriage. That’s part of what helped keep him grounded. She wasn’t disillusioned by his success in the media.
Some Kind of Woman
She must have been some kind of woman to be acknowledged in such a fashion. That’s all I can think, because it wasn’t like she was the celebrity. Her husband was. Yet it seems even though she wasn’t impressed by the spotlight, it’s being shined on her nonetheless. For what a wonderful wife and anchor she was for her husband.
My heart goes out to him.
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