As chance would have it, I happened to be roaming the halls of the Russell Senate Office Building just a few weeks ago when I bumped into — almost literally — Sen. Lindsey Graham. I had met him briefly on two different occasions years ago, each time at one of those functions where you briefly meet such figures, but couldn’t say I knew him; he was busy, I was busy, and in any case he was not on my list of people I needed to speak with, so it was a fleeting encounter with no words passed, the type that happens a dozen or more times every day. 

Had I known he was to pass away less than a month later, I should like to think that I would have taken a second to interrupt his movements long enough to simply tell him “thank you.” I didn’t know, of course, no one did, and life doesn’t work that way in any event. Nevertheless, his was a life of service worthy of a measure of gratitude, however belated.