When I was a kid my mom woke me up early and I remember it because it was a freaking Sunday and I wanted to sleep in. Then I noticed she was crying and I began freaking out inside because my anxious little brain was always convinced something horrible was about to happen. Perhaps dad had died? Or, worse in my mind, one of my beloved pets?
No.
John Denver, my mom’s favorite musician, had died in a plane crash. Hours of perfectly good sleep, lost forever, because some guy I only knew from the worn covers of my mom’s CD collection. That was the true tragedy in my mind.
I didn’t understand how anyone could be so sad at the death of someone they’d never met.
Until October 28th, when I heard Patrick Stewart died.
I spent several hours silently crying as I read through the tributes from his colleagues and fans. The ones that hit me hardest were the ones from Star Trek fans though. I wept looking through the various memorial videos on YouTube, almost all of them about Captain Picard.
Patrick Stewart was a marvelous actor who played dozens of memorable characters throughout the years. I loved him as Professor X and thought his rendition of Scrooge was beautiful.
But Captain Picard helped shaped who I am.
That might seem hyperbole. He was nothing but a fictional TV character. And yet it is the unabashed truth to tell you that so much of who I am is thanks to Captain Picard.
I grew up watching reruns of The Next Generation with my parents. Its philosophical explorations were lost on my six-year-old brain, but I knew I came away from that show feeling better about myself.
I was diagnosed with depression when I was just seven years old. Seven years old and I already hated myself. I already wanted to die. I even expressed that desire to my mom by telling her I wished I had a self-destruct like the Enterprise, because I didn’t know the word suicide.
Captain Picard, and the quiet, dignified strength Patrick Stewart portrayed in him, gave me hope. And that hope was everything to me.
The hope that maybe I could be like Captain Picard one day.
So much of who I am is built on that hope.
Open your mind to the past — art, history, philosophy. And all this may mean something.
— Captain Picard
I read a biography of Napoleon when I was twelve, leading to a lifelong obsession with that period of history. I read War and Peace immediately afterwards and it led me to so many other works of classical literature. It led to me to find my all time favorite author, Mark Twain. Much of my strength as a writer came from that period of learning how others wrote.
Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Sun Tzu, Confucius. I came to know all these philosophers. Of course it wasn’t until decades later that I began to understand their concepts, but I read them regardless. It was hard, painful even. Yet I did it because Captain Picard had told me to do it. I’d hoped to make him proud of me.
I wanted to make my dad proud of me too, and now as an adult I now know he was. But at the time my dad was too buried beneath his own suffering to express his pride in a way my childhood self could understand. I knew what would make Captain Picard proud of me, and I hoped that maybe it would make my dad proud too.
To this day, when I’m forced to face a hard decision, I still wonder what would Captain Picard do?
I recently suffered one of the greatest losses of my life and I write this while still sitting in the ashes of that defeat.
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.
— Captain Picard
I made no mistakes that led me to this place of grief. I made the best decisions I could with the information I had and I lost. And that’s life. It happens.
What makes this quote memorable to me is that Captain Picard says this to reassure Data as he suffers from a moment of self-doubt. That’s what Captain Picard does, he lifts up all those around him. He made everyone on the Enterprise feel safe.
And that is the single most important thing I’ve built my life around: lifting others up and making them feel safe. I want to make people feel around me, the way Picard’s crew felt around him.
I succeeded in that. My friends, dance partners, and coworkers everywhere I’ve gone have always remarked on how safe I make them feel. It’s something I take great pride in.
Because it would make Captain Picard proud.
He who was my companion, through adventure and hardship, is gone forever.
— Captain Picard reciting the Epic of Gilgamesh
The beauty of art is that it outlives its creator. The world will never lose Captain Picard. It will never lose the way Patrick Stewart embodied the character and served as an inspiration for so many.
What has been lost is the future for more stories about Captain Picard, because none will ever be able to embody that character the way Patrick Stewart did. Many are sharing their favorite quotes to commemorate the great actor who gave us one of the greatest heroes ever created. Perhaps most poignant is that John DeLancie’s final performed line with Patrick was:
Farewell, Mon Capitaine, […] see you out there.
And yet the one that sticks with me is perhaps the one most appropriate for the old Shakespearean actor. One that Captain Picard reads out in an episode where he believes Data has been killed.
He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2
Farewell Patrick Stewart. Rest well. You gave the world an amazing gift.
And goodbye Captain.
Thank you for everything.
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