Senator Lenihan stood like a rock

Posted 4/2/15

H. Philip West Jr., former director of Common Cause, delivered the following eulogy for Senator J. Michael Lenihan on March 5 at St. Francis de Sales Church, North Kingstown. Senator Lenihan …

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Senator Lenihan stood like a rock

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H. Philip West Jr., former director of Common Cause, delivered the following eulogy for Senator J. Michael Lenihan on March 5 at St. Francis de Sales Church, North Kingstown. Senator Lenihan represented constituents in Warwick, East Greenwich and North Kingston.

Losing Sen. J. Michael Lenihan leaves us all feeling bereft. Each of us feels the loss in different ways.

One of his former students, Michelle Safford, wrote on Facebook: “Mr. Lenihan was my 9th grade English teacher at Scituate HS. I learned vocabulary words every week, which back then, seemed boring. Now, more than 20 years later, I can still recall words and wonder, ‘How do I know that?!’ It’s because of Mr. Lenihan.”

The day Mike died, his daughter Meghan wrote on Facebook: “This morning I lost the biggest part of my heart, the biggest part of who I am, and who helped me, guided me & sculpted me to become who I have become. Today I lost my dad, J. Michael Lenihan. I lost my hero, my mentor, my confidant, my go-to person, my support system, my strength, my stability, my guidance, my friend.”

Thank you, Meghan. You speak for us all. I feel that way, too.

I want to say a special word of thanks to you, Pat, for sustaining Mike throughout his public service and through these agonizing years of his declining health. Since his death, you’ve held the rest of us together.

As reporters called to ask about Mike, I’ve found myself describing his 2x4 with broad green letters: VOTER. He held it high in the Senate chamber to remind his colleagues who’s in charge.

Mike found a high calling to serve his constituents. He had little patience for public officials who put their personal interests above their people’s needs.

I reminded reporters who phoned of a motto by Thomas Jefferson that Mike kept on his desk: “On matters of style, swim with the current. On matters of principle, stand like a rock.” He lived by that. When I began writing about those years, Mike shared his memories during a three-hour interview. He told me about influences that shaped him, particularly his parents’ honesty. He said, if they left a store and his parents discovered that the clerk had given too much change, his father would turn around and drive back to make it right.

Mike spoke fondly of a priest who plucked him out of the congregation, made him an altar boy on the spot, and inspired him.

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