Remembering Beverly This is the eulogy that Bill Bourque delivered at Beverly’s memorial service on 2/21/09: There is a certain percentage of the population, say something like 90%, who dread eulogies. They feel they're often overblown and over late, and the tear-streaked faces in the congregation may represent a desperate plea for relief as much as a tender remembrance of the deceased. Good News! We’re here to speak of Beverly as concisely and accurately as possible; to chisel from solid marble a fitting description of a noble life; a life well lived. And if Bev, like Huck Finn, were somewhere in this church watching her own memorial, we might shout "Beverly, please come out! Send us a message. Help us do justice to yourself- as you did justice to Sean- with the simple statement 'he was content'." I think most of us know that, even if this were possible, Bev would remain silent. In the aftermath of 9/11, as she gained access to the powerful, became well known and well respected, we knew she was not in it for herself. She was not in it to be a hero. She was in it so that this should never happen to anyone again. Because of her, our nation became a safer place. She is one of the main reasons the powerful moved at all; because nothing is so powerful as a simple, clear truth; we are all important, we are all worth protecting, and when we are not- we deserve an equally clear response. "Why?" Even for Beverly this could not have been easy. She was often frustrated by politicians who protected their own turf, who felt it was more important to deny innocent mistakes than acknowledge the failings and breakdowns that occurred on that terrible Tuesday. As a heartbroken private citizen she went to Washington to change this, and her courage in doing so is reflected in the old adage: legislation is like sausage- you don’t want to watch it being made. How could someone like Beverly get through this? The answer is simple. She was just being the person she had always been. When she first met Sean, Sean's younger brother Ben asked Sean to "make her go away". Since this was 40 plus years ago and Ben was only four at the time, we have not held this against him. Fortunately, Beverly didn’t go away. If there is anything that best describes her, it is loyalty to family and friends. She loved her nieces and nephews as if they were her own children. She followed their successes and their struggles and talked about them often. She broadened our children’s horizons with trips to New York City and Boston; to Thanksgiving Day parades and the Freedom Trail. ..to Faneuil Hall and to Central Park. We all knew that if you visited Beverly and Sean you better get a good night's sleep. You would be up early. No sitting around. A long, strenuous day was ahead. But we had fun... great fun. More than once we visited Canal Street. Beverly considered this educational. Canal Street was the best street for "bargains" anywhere. But when a thirty-something female called our house asking about buying our teenage son’s 'knock off' sunglasses we figured education had reached critical mass. Beverly just laughed and laughed. Beverly involved her nieces and nephews in everything. When Mike and Steve were older, she hired them to paint her house. She painted a mural for Nate during his surgery as she had a mural painted for Sean in Stamford. When all the children were young, she gathered them around and asked them to write a short story called "The Black Balloon". She sparked their imaginations by asking them individually to contribute parts of the story line. And I was frankly surprised by their enthusiasm and involvement. I thought at the time that Beverly would have made a wonderful teacher--- because it was her own enthusiasm and involvement that our children adopted. But Beverly was a teacher. She lived each day to the fullest. She served others as a soup kitchen worker, a person who spent her time and money distributing gloves and blankets to the homeless... a builder of houses for Habitat for Humanity and a builder of dreams for her "children". She succeeded in her promise to Sean to make his life- and death- meaningful by pursuing the creation of a 9/11 commission and by establishing a scholarship in his memory at Canisius. To be honest, her success in living such an elegant life is what makes us all somewhat content. She did what she set out to do. She was, as Remy- her first scholarship winner described her: an Angel of Courage. Her life sent the message we all need to be fully, completely human. And although there is an extreme amount left unsaid, what remains is left in all our hearts forever. Whether she is in this church or not, we'd like to send a message of our own: "We love you Beverly... Thanks for making us so much a part of your life".