In Memory of Bernard Hill

"And are you proud of it - your life, your body of work?" Peter asked. "Well, I give myself a bit of credit for staying on it," the soul replied. "For being true to it - for trying, failures too many to count." Peter smiled. "I did have the courage or ego or stupidity to take at least one role that did not embody me and stretched inside of it until it fit," the soul continued. "Why the stretch?" Peter asked, finishing the check-in and getting ready to open the gate. "To have that fineness within me - actually BE me, even for a moment ... noble in all ways that I was not as a person. To become that for even a moment and to let it ring true in me," came the answer. "Like calls to like," Peter whispered, and the gates parted not on clouds and endless light, but on the green fields of Rohan and the welcome silhouette of the Rohirrim in formation at the crest of the first hill. "Life calls to like," Peter said again, but the soul had started moving, its cloak heavy, its fur mantle warm against the indignities of weather; the crown rested where it always had. The Riders were moving down the grade to receive him; somewhere, children were singing. "I go to my fathers ... and even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed," the soul called out to the others as the horn sounded in welcome.