He was interrupted by laughter from the crowd.
"I asked him to just let this be a family affair. It's been a while since they were in Naval Intelligence..."
There was a gasp from some of the youngest there. The old couple was always thought to be just Gram and Granddad who always had cookies and ready money and old cars to ride around in. Spies? They were spies?
"And we all know, or should know, what crazy days those were. We're still here, thank God and I'd like to think a lot of that had to do with what they and their colleagues were doing over the years."
The admiral spoke to the crowd on the hill, quiet once more in their respect for the man and his wife who had died within minutes of each other, first him and then her, as if she could not live without him in her life.
Her granddaughter was with her those final moments and remarked that her last words were "Catherine"; she thought Gram was speaking to her but her own mother told her later that was not the case at all.
"More importantly," the admiral continued, "we are here to remember Jim and Bethany Rose who cast aside the constraints of the time and started a family here in Hawaii that led to all of us today. Look around you and what do you see? Family, no matter what we look like, we are the 'family'."
He wished there were more of a breeze to cool the temperature. Even though everyone knew this day would come, its arrival still shook them to their being. It was hard to imagine life without the two, patriarch and matriarch of the family that had flown in from all parts of the world to attend this memorial service.
"How do you sum up the lives of two people so important to all of us in such a short time that we have today? As they lived their lives together, they fought two battles: keeping us all safe from our enemies abroad and from our society here, teaching us to accomplish whatever it was that we set out to do.
"I look around and see my brothers, sisters and cousins, all successful in their own ways... doctors, lawyers, teachers, members of the military following their steps. Yes, we are not all here... John and Eliza have been gone for many years. We lost John, Jimmy and Stephen during Vietnam and Mary Beth and Susan...
"Losing Susan, I think hurt us all more than anything else. I know that Gram felt so hurt..." There were nods in the crowd while the younger ones stood respectfully silent but the hurt wasn't there for them, they still knew the story.
