O Captain, my captain!
You built your own ship
And it sheltered us all
From the storms in our minds.
But you didn’t mind at all…
. . . You didn’t mind our sorrow
. . . You didn’t mind the pain
. . . You didn’t mind my negativity
. . . You had so much more to gain.
You were on a quest to find beauty!
And beauty you did find.
You found it in us, through your heart and our minds.
So you supported and grew it in the things that you did
. . . From frustules to dancing
. . . From Stocate, to you, Dan.
Your eyes twinkled behind a bearded smile
Like two stars behind the clouds, like how you saw the world –
. . . Jaded with glimmers of hope
. . . Stressed with bursts of excitement
. . . Simple in its complexity
If we only slowed down for awhile.
You felt without thinking
To give our thoughts meaning
Finding beauty in sorrow
Learned to talk about your feelings.
You chose what you did.
Chose whom to spend time with
So that when we felt small,
You grew all of us, by finding beauty in us all.
In this life that you led, you built your own ship
Now you were building the crew.
Like your own school system,
You educated us too.
O Captain, my captain!
You taught us to build
. . . To craft our own lifeboats!
We became your guild.
You supported us through starry nights and stormy weather
Your bearded smile led the way, your wisdom held us together.
Your voice was my therapy through thick and through thin.
We talked about belonging, and problems with the system.
Your impact on us has guided our growth
Through storms and sorrow, it will keep us close to you.
It brought us out of our heads to be present in the moment
But I don’t want to be present, in this world without you.
Your selflessness saved us
. . . It supported us through
. . . It saved us from sinking
Into memories of you.
It helped build our lifeboats from pieces of your ship
But I am still very selfish, I want more of you.
O Captain, my captain!
Now your ship has sunk
It left behind afterlifeboats
Made from pieces of you.
Your steer was strong-willed to leave a loving aftermath
It inspired Originals, in loving memory of you.
But your memories keep dancing
. . . In these thoughts that we feel
. . . In these feelings we think about
. . . In our longing for you.
We have our afterlifeboats, but your ship sank too soon
. . . Too suddenly to save
. . . Too quick to say goodbye
. . . Too soon to let go
. . . To hold on to you.
You left us in pain, but that pain is where it belongs
In the loss of a piece of us, in our longing for you.
Now we must steer our afterlifeboats to find beauty in this ocean
Empty and blue without you
Our afterlifeboats have no ship, but we’ll keep finding beauty
Because we are pieces of you.
Bon voyage, Captain!
We miss you.
Recited at the memorial of Dan Petrescu on 9th October 2021 by Yannick D’Mello
Dan Petrescu was a close friend and research collaborator. We met while doing our PhDs together and quickly became better friends than colleagues. He was a team member of the diatom project and Stocate. Dan’s dream was to build his own education system – one that would focus on active learning rather than creating boxes structures for everyone to fit in. I am honoured to have spent the last 6 years of his short 30-year life with him. On the 3rd of October 2021, he and his family were in a plane crash. I did not believe it at first. I read countless news articles, and kept messaging him and waiting for him to respond. But he didn’t respond.
During the next week, my messages to Dan evolved through denial, pain, bargaining, anger, and finally acceptance with a touch of hope. The words in those messages formed this poem. It was inspired by Dan’s own words to Sueli, “I wish for you that you experience the world fully, in all of its beauty and sorrow. Simple as it is.”
Dan is gone but certainly not forgotten.