MARIE COLVIN

It is with deep sorrow that I write today about the loss of my dear friend, Marie Colvin, who, just a few months ago, urged me never to stop writing.

I still remember  the  sms messages she sent me from Cairo. I was working for UNHCR, sitting in my office in Beirut, watching the Revolution on TV and aching to be with Marie in Tahrir Square. “Your place is here, not in an office, come to Tahrir. I’m waiting for you,” Marie wrote.

Again, she would call me from Libya to tell me how much excitement I was missing by not covering the war there, and the sadness that filled her heart to see so many people killed.  

I have worked closely with Marie since 1987. We shared the good and bad times. I learned so much from her, about life, and journalism.

Our foreign correspondent friends in Jerusalem would look at us in confusion and disbelief when we told them about the great time we had covering stories in Gaza, a, a city many would visit only if a big story unraveled, but a place we made our second home.

We covered peace and war, and the adrenaline kept us going, believing that the more risk we took, the more deeply we would seek the truth and relay it to the world.

I worked with Marie during the first and second wars in Iraq. Her passion for seeking the truth stopped at nothing. I remember how her dedication to help people made her rent a bulldozer in Iraq to uncover mass graves and help families reunite with the bones of their loved ones.

Her courage was unique. Wars she covered in all places of the earth should have hardened her, but she was soft, kind, and caring. She was not tough. The kind of human stories she told so well showed the real  person she was.

She lived her life passionately, both as a journalist and as a human being. War correspondents are not normal human beings, she would tell me.

It is rare to find journalists so dedicated. She risked death so many times, we knew she would die trying to save lives, but the loss of such a legendary journalist and a good friend is always shocking.

She did not go to wars to prove herself, she had a point to prove, she was on a mission.

Last month I invited her to my new home in Washington and told her: “Take care of yourself”, she replied, “You know me”.

It’s a very sad day for all of us. This day underlines the risks journalists take.