A brief personal note on the tragic assassination today of Dr. George Tiller, of Wichita, KS.

As what seems today like a lifetime ago, I once lived in Wichita and had the pleasure to meet Dr. Tiller on several occasions. He was then and will always be remembered as a fine and compassionate person.

Headline writers will abbreviate a long medical career spent in service to others to two words: abortion doctor. That does a great disservice to the man, his family, his friends, his patients, his church and his community. He was far more than that.

To say the news of his murder was heartbreaking or gutwrenching doesn't come close to expressing the devastating feeling.

Political grandstanding in the coming days will overshadow the real legacy of a very kind man with a very big heart.