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TI: "The Eulogy" TNG, AU (C)
AU: mari1529
SE: TNG (C)
R:       G
SU: Beverly makes a statement of evidence.
AN: Inspired by "Don't Look Back In Anger" by OASIS. Whitman used without 
permission, but not for profit. And yes, I don't make money from this (though 
how I wish I did!)
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I thought long and hard about what to say about my dearest, closest friend.

There are so many things about him, so many things that I treasured, so many 
moments I love.

But trying to sum up this man in one speech is impossible.

So what can I do?

One night, a long time ago, years after the world we knew burned away, after 
I lost the man who meant the world to me, I was sitting in my room feeling 
sorry for myself. He came and dragged me out, took me to a cliff overlooking 
his childhood home, and shared his soul. 

And then he made me read something. Something he said had always got him 
through the hard times in his life.

So I am going to share with you the gift he shared with me that night.

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise 
riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, 
devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning 
God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to 
nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with 
powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of 
families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of 
your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any 
book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a 
great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the 
silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in 
every motion and joint of your body...." 

Walt Whitman wrote that centuries ago. But it resonated within him. He always 
said to me that he may not have been obsessed with Shakespeare, or fathomed 
history in all its forms, or understood the many layers of the soul, but that 
he appreciated the past for what it was and what it had to teach, and that he 
understood himself.

Today, we bury an unmatched officer. An unparalleled teacher. A loyal, true, 
eternal friend. A much-loved son. A dedicated father. A devoted husband.

I promise you, dearest friend, that I will read the leaves in every season of 
every year of my life.

Goodbye, Will.

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