A Visual Panegyric

I have not yet found words to adequately describe my thoughts and feelings on the passing of President Gordon B. Hinckley.

Like Whitman, I feel to cry, 'O Captain! My Captain!' to a Prophet whose compassion showed me the Savior's love and whose belief in me filled me with the Savior's hope.

This loss has reminded me of when my first mission president left the mission and an elder came to me and asked, "Elder Romney, do you feel a difference in the mission... its different now. I don't have that same feeling as before." The spirit gave me an answer to the question I was asked, for me and for that Elder, and which it seems applies to the passing of this great giant. I looked at him and said, "Elder, we were blessed to be led by such a man as President Martins Silva. His love, his spirit, was so great that the light and love of Christ literally showed through the perfect prism of his soul to fill us all. Now, we have to figure out how to do it on our own."

So too, I see it with President Hinckley. His great gift was to love, hope, and believe as the Savior would and be able to share it with you personally even if he was speaking to the world. This was not rhetoric for him. The way the Savior loved differently enough to reach out to the afflicted and to the children, so too loved President Hinckley. As Sheri Dew said, "He believed in you more than you believed in you, he thought you were better than you did."

A door has been shut, a window closed.

Yet, I know the Lord’s work will move forward and I am so excited to be part of the change and growth that is coming. Of course, the work will go on. Of course, President Monson will work wonders and is a great prophet already. I love him and had the spirit testify to me at the Leadership Conference that he is God's chosen and anointed leader of this church on the earth. He is great and will do great. But I feel in my soul the loss of my Prophet... President Gordon B. Hinckley.

Him who who helped me believe and hope a little bit more every time I heard him. As he said of Elder Maxwell, let me say of him, "I do not think we shall every see his like again".

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Even now, words are so inadequate and so I offer this picture of the hands that served so faithfully and so lovingly for so long. This picture touches me, for I know those hands just as much as if they were put upon my head every day these past 14 years. I thank my Father in Heaven for the blessing of having lived in the time of President Gordon B. Hinckley. I hope you all enjoy the picture and remember him as I do.