Rest well, dear friend and mentor, N. Eugene Tester. It’s immeasurable how much better I am for having known you. I fear anything else I could or should convey now will only feel trite and thin, but I feel a need to try…

There is much to say about his work as an educator, as well as his positive impact on me, my life, and helping me to honor, sharpen, and utilize my inherent gifts and abilities. He taught me to dismantle the destructive behavior of anyone who tried to minimize or harm me or a community, via informed intelligence and truth. Rest well, good man. Thank you for reinforcing in me to always keep seeking knowledge and to never cease learning. Thank you for seeing everything everyone was trying to crush out of me and frame as wrong, for the intrinsic gifts they were. I wouldn’t be half the truth teller and perpetual student I am had I not met, been respected by, and learned from you.

What a full, and well-lived life.

Though you never believed it, we will met again.