I wrote it whilst I was still alive: Seeing, Hearing, Feeling. Now you hear it, either read to you or as a disembodied voice. Do not shrink from it. The dead, too, have a right to be heard.

My first goodbye is to Ilse. Ilse, we shared not one life but many lives, many ends that led to many new beginnings. When we married, we did not exchange any vows. We did not say: "For better or for worse". But we lived for better and for worse. And the better was very good and the worse did not let us despair since we had each other for support. We did not vow: "In sickness and in Health". But we lived together through sickness and in health. And we enjoyed each other's health. We did not promise: "Until death do us part". But now death did us part. Do not grieve for too long! Life was too good for that.

I say goodbye to our children: Stephen and Joanna. You were and you are much loved. I know that my love was at times adulterated by anxiety, impatience or over concern. But it was and it is Love. "Love" a short word filled with ambiguity and contradiction but as irrefutable as it is un-understandable but it is a most real part of life. And it was a big part of our lives. Men and women have tried to describe love, fathom it and they will continue to try as long as there are men and women on earth only to discover that everybody has to find his and her own definition of love. I loved you both very much. Now you stand in midlife. You can look back, you can look forward. Look back to your past. Learn to love your past. It can be a happy love affair. No disappointment is possible anymore. The past won't change its mind because the past is the past. But you can look back and understand. You can look back, way back beyond your own past. It's a long history. You might encounter the gods and heroes of ancient Greece, the gods who were human, the humans who seemed so godlike. You might shudder at the visions of horrors, horrors men and women brought on themselves and each other. But with all this: You are here in midlife. The past, close or distant, lies before you like an open book whose pages you might turn, read or skip at will. The future lies ahead of you, unknowable, unpredictable but not entirely outside your control. Whatever you do, whatever forms your lives take, the repercussions will reach into future generations in way you cannot and probably will never know.

I say goodbye to our grandchildren: Gwendolen, Susan, Simon, Peter. You have inherited much from your ancestors. The power of the genes is strong. But it is not all powerful. You will add your own combinations. Environment, people will influence you. Your ancestors will partly determine what you are, what you will become but many decisions will be made by you and only you.

I say goodbye to the people I worked with for so many years: Colleagues, students, pupils, clients, campers. I have worked for them, they have repaid me a hundredfold by their responses. We have supported each other, influenced each other through our personal relationships. Some I have forgotten, some have forgotten me and with those it is as if our relationships had never existed. But they did exist and they do exist and they have partly formed what I was and they have partly formed what they became. We have lived through each other. We might not have know it at times, we still might remain unaware but whatever human beings do for and to each other, say to each other, becomes part of their lived and through them part of the lived of the innumerable many whom they encounter whilst they are walking the straight roads, the byways or side streets or dead end lanes of their lived. No man is and island to himself. He or she sometimes wished they were. But they cannot be.

I subscribed to what Virginia Woolf wrote: "About the only conceivable life after death being the memories people retain of you". And I might add: Everything else is the wishful thinking and the illusions of grown up children, laced with superstitions and mythology - sometimes quite charming, even beautiful, but self deceptive nevertheless.

I never believed in the dictum: "De mortuis nil nisi bonum". "Of the dead nothing be said but what is good." I favored truth in memories but, of course, I hoped, like most people, that the good memories would tip the scales in their favor. Of course, I would not wish to impose memories on anybody. "And if you will remember, and if you will forget." And memories fade until they eventually and inevitable disappear. Repercussions of lives lived last much longer. Their impact may be to the good or to the not so good. It depends. On what? I really don't know. As for my self, I had hopes. Are they justified?

Kenneth Arnow wrote: "Private income are only part of what men and women live for. They are" and I add" or should be, "only means to achieve the real goals of life." What can the real goals be? There are many. Most people develop and formulate their own, depending, partly on lifespan. Two of them you may define from what I have said: Evoke memories of what people may remember of you and acquire an awareness that long range repercussions of your existence - however short or long - are not only possible but inevitable. There are others: To achieve a balance of what or whom you accept or reject. To achieve a balance between activity and passivity, but between movement and rest, between faith and doubt, belief and skepticism. To find your own definition of what you regard as good or evil, as friendly or hostile. To decide to what extent you can reconcile your lifestyle, your everyday behavior with the set of values you have accepted as your own without despairing, if you find that such reconciliation is only partly possible as is the practical application of many good intentions. Don't be disheartened by the recall of missed opportunities since they are compensated by the joy over opportunities you have not missed. What for you is possible and what is not, when to act and when to acquiesce, when to protest and when to remain silent and when protest and action may be futile or unimportant or inconsequential, these decisions are yours to make. I could go on but realize that you are on your own and that words are just that: Words. But forgive me; they were well meant. Of course, many well meant words have caused a lot of damage. I hope that these won't.

What can I say to all of you? To those who might hear my voice or listen to what I had to say, to those who may remember me, even to those who may have forgotten? You probably noticed, those of you who are here. There is no priest, no rabbi at this farewell. I did not believe in any of the man made gods and their representatives. They made demands that human beings could not possibly meet and often left a trail of guilt, despair and violence that has haunted men and women over the centuries. I realized that they were often a comfort but such comfort was brought at too high a price. What did I believe then? I believed in you, I believed in myself, I believed in you as human beings, in your strengths and weaknesses. I believed in myself as a man who tried to fulfill his role as autonomously as it was possible for him and who was helped by many along the road as he has tried to help them in turn.

I believed in you, I believed in the millions of men, the millions of women who have lived, who are living now, who shall ever live. I know they were, they are, they will be vulnerable, threatened by death and injuries, accident and fate. But they were, they are, they will be endowed with eyes to see, with ears to hear, with brains to think, with hearts to feel. Growing, creating, spending their energies, deciding, choosing their roads. When will they choose roads that lead to harmony and unity, that make life complete for all men and women? I never found out. I knew they were trying. I knew they will continue to try. They take steps. Small steps at times; timid steps. Maybe eventually mankind will reach the goals, maybe the reward lies only in the attempt. Maybe it was, maybe it is, maybe it always will be mankind's destiny to try reaching the unreachable. A proud fate, a gallant attempt, worthy of our unique role as inhabitants of a universe that is destined to remain unaware of our existence. We have explored it, we shall continue to explore it. You will, future generations will pursue the proud goal of exploration until mankind has reached the limits of their powers. And there are limits. No visitors from outer space will enlighten you, no gods will come to your aid. You yourselves, the generations that follow you, will have to do it and be exhilarated by their achievements, frustrated and made angry by their limitations, disappointments and failures. But, oh, what a gallant struggle! Oh the brave music of distant drums! Man's unconquerable spirit against insurmountable obstacles!

And, along the road you are walking, may you sustain your visions, supported by hope but may you retain, without resentment, your sense of reality based on truthfulness and on the courage to face the truth. Between beginning and end, between birth and death may you be nourished by your hopes without losing sight of reality and the limitations it imposes. You have two polar stars, not one: Hope and Reality. Obey your own Polarity! Farewell!

Ernst Bulova