Tim Russert's Son Luke On Cherishing Every Moment He Spent With the 'Meet the Press' Host

In his new memoir, Look For Me There, Luke Russert reflects on growing up with father Tim Russert. In an exclusive interview with People, he spoke about how his father was always there for him

Luke Russert's dad was his biggest supporter. Despite Tim Russert's high-profile and intense job — before his sudden death in 2008, the elder Russert was the Washington bureau chief for NBC as well as the host of Meet the Press — he was always there for his son and only child.

Even with the intense demands of his father's job and extensive charitable activities, Luke Russert says, "he always was able to make time," whether that meant supervising homework, taking him to ballgames and practices, or just being a present family man.

"I still don't know how he did it," Russert adds. "I like to joke that he would buy five extra hours in a day somehow because it was simply incredible to go from preparing to interview the president of United States, to then helping me with an English assignment, and then taking me to a ballgame, and then hanging out with my friends at a fast food restaurant, and then coming back and hanging out with my mom. I mean, it's just absolutely incredible. And it's something that I cherish to this day."

Now 37, Russert was just 22 when his father died. After eight years following in his father's footsteps as an NBC correspondent, he left the job and spent the next several years traveling the world, a journey he describes in the new book. "As much as it was me trying to look inward and understand myself and understand the world," he says, the exploration allowed him space to process the grief of losing his father.

Related:Tim Russert: The Father's Day That Wasn't

What he's left with is gratitude for having the time they did have together, and the lessons his father instilled in him. And, he adds, he still feels his father in his life. "From the moment he passed, I could just always sort of feel a presence," Russert says, "And to this day, that's the fact. So I try to get into that space where I can try and really feel him and feel what he would say to me in a given moment or a given situation."

Losing his father, Russert adds, in some ways led to his growing closer with his mother, Maureen Orth, a journalist and author who is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine.

"My father and I, I think there's something unique about the father and son bond," Russert says. "We were very, very tight. And I think my mother certainly was aware of that, had to live with that. Most of the time it was harmonious. But there were other times where I think she probably felt, 'God, these guys are so macho. They're so into sports, they should branch out a little bit.'"

But going through his father's death together, and then learning from her as he undertook his travels, Russert says, inspired a new understanding of his mother. "I realized how ignorant I was of how incredible her time was in the Peace Corps in the 1960s. And that she herself was sort of running to discover something too. And it wasn't until I really traveled and saw the world that I recognized just how incredible that was," he says.

"And through my own traveling, I was able to really understand her better and develop a much stronger and healthier respect for her. And ultimately ended up with a deeper love for her because I got her."

Growing up with two talented and successful parents can be both a blessing and a curse. For Russert, despite his early entrance into his father's profession, it wasn't a totally linear path. "It's important to figure out your own identity independent of your parents," he says. "They are certainly part of you, you are their blood, but balance the idea of 'you're supposed to do something' with 'you're passionate and comfortable about something.' Find the sweet spot between duty and desire."

Luke Russert's mother has already read the book ("in several iterations," he says) but publishing it without his father around means he has to imagine Tim Russert's reaction. "I hope he'd be impressed," Luke says. "I know he'd be proud."

Look For Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself, by Luke Russert, will be published on May 2 by Harper Horizon.

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