<USS Avalon> Memorial

Memorial 
By  Fleet Captain Keith Ketchum 
Keith walked to the front of the  small gathering.  An Celtic Aire was  
playing softly in the background.  He disliked performing this type of service. 
 He 
squeezed the bridge of his nose for a  second.  Taking a quick sip of  water, 
he sat the glass down and began. 
"No one knows the reason that someone  is taken so young.  No one really  
knows where you go.  On Terra, there  are multiple religions that give 
different 
locations: Nirvana,  Valhalla, Jannah, Vaikunta, or Heaven.  The Klingon's 
belief is in  Sto-vo-kor.  All of them point to an  after-life." 
"Elissabeth and Bryce were taken  early in their career.  One was  taken by 
natural causes; the other by someone's hand.  We know not why for either.  We 
will never really know what they  would have become.  But we know that  they 
touched us in their short time that they were with  us." 
He pressed his lips together, then  put his thumb to them, trying to continue 
his  thoughts. 
"Change is something that we cannot  foresee.  This is just a  change.  Life 
does go on.  Perhaps we could look at death as the  beginning of a new type of 
relationship with the deceased, a spiritual one,  rather than a physical one. 
We should see this new state of existence as some  unexplored challenge." 
Keith took another drink of water,  and another deep breath, "I've heard it 
said that people come into our lives for  a reason bringing something we must 
learn.  And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them.  And 
we help them in return well, I don't  know if I believe that's true but I know 
I'm who I am today, because I knew  you." 
"So much of me, is made of what I  learned from you, you'll be with me like a 
handprint on my heart.  And now whatever way our stories end, I  know you 
have re-written mine." 
"Like a comet pulled from orbit, as  it passes a sun.  Like a stream that  
meets a boulder, halfway through the wood.  Like a ship blown from its mooring, 
by a wind off the sea.  Like a seed dropped by a skybird, in a  distant wood." 
"Because I knew you, Elissabeth and  Bryce:  I have been changed for  good."  
He finished, lowered his  head and walked down the center aisle and out of 
the  room.

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