Funeral Elegy

22 April 2005 - Papandreou Family
Wednesday, June 26, 1996
Church of The Metropolis

Dad, we want to tell you something. Have you heard the news?

There's been something going on for three days now, right here in Athens, the heart of civilization below the sacred rock of the Acropolis. People are coming from everywhere, from Thrace and Macedonia, from the Aegean and from the Ionian Islands, from the green hills of Ipirus to the blue seas around the Peloponnese, from heroic Crete to wounded Cyprus.. They are coming by ship, by airplane, and by car, on foot and on wheelchairs, old as olive trees and young as the dawn. They are coming to honor a great man, they say, a man who helped them, a man they loved.

This is the news and we want to tell you about it.

In the streets here in Athens, and even, they say, around the world, people are talking about a man. Can a single man have walked so many miles?

They say that he spoke of familiar yet ignored things like democracy and justice, peace and equality. They say he scared the mighty and the powerful and roused the poor and the downtrodden. He said things like "Greece to the Greeks" and the "Army belongs to the People" and "the People are Sovereign" and "National Independence." They say he spoke out for all small countries, ancient countries like Palestine, that he spoke for whole regions. the Arabias and India and Latin America.

Dad, we want to tell you about him.

When his daughter Sophia was unable to study for her examinations in University because of anxiety, he told her to respect her soul. "Respect your life," he told her. When Nikos, aged fourteen, was crying because his heart was in pain, you told him that this was a good sign. It meant he had suffered; it meant he had lived. When Andrikos was doing badly in grade six, you asked him to work two hours a day and sign a sheet that he had done so. Once, when his oldest son Yorgos, had a gun pointed at his head, he gave himself up to save him.

This man had a companion who walked with him side by side for many years, a woman who bore his children and who softened the roar of his life. We know he loved her and we also know she loved him, with all her heart.

We want to tell you that this man lived his final years in the company of a daring woman who stayed hard by his side until the very last moment.

This man learned something significant from his father, Yorgos from Kalentzi -- a village in the hills of Erymanthos. He learned about the long trip toward Ithaka. In turn this man taught his own children his own Ithakas, so they could continue the journey.

Father, you left this world with dignity, a fighter, a Levendis, on your feet. No, you did not go quiet into the night. You left with the roar of thousands of voices, you left with the applause of a whole nation.

Dad, we want to tell you something, the way we always did when something important happened. Here's the news: a great man is gone. A good man, our father, has left us.

Dad, we want to tell you something more:

We love you.

Goodbye dad,

May you Rest in Peace.