Baker Institute Forum
and
Stone Weeks and Holt Weeks
Bench Dedication
Remarks by Jan and Linton Weeks
L: We are grateful to all the generous people at the Baker Institute, the student groups -- Humanitarian Medical Outreach, Rice Habitat for Humanity, and Baker Institute Student Forum -- and the entire Rice University community -- for all the love for Stone and for Holt and all the love and support for us. We want to especially thank James Baker whose generous gift made this bench possible.
We are -- and always will be -- completely devastated by what happened to Stone and to Holt -- all that they lost, all that the world lost -- never understanding or accepting. And we are -- and always will be -- completely devoted to them. Our love, admiration, and devotion know no bounds -- in time or in space.
Stone and Holt worked very hard, and so passionately -- and they had teed up their lives so beautifully. And they were excited -- looking forward to so much. They were so overflowing with love. They absolutely loved Houston. They loved being in Houston together. They loved being at Rice, at the Baker Institute, they loved their work here. They loved their friends. They loved history, political debate, intellectual pursuits, sports, music, laughter. They made everything they did so very much fun for everyone. They loved The Beacon and feeling that they were helping to make the world a better place. They loved each other, they loved us, they loved life.
A friend of Stone's at Rice, Tim Faust wrote to us that his lasting impression of Stone-- was how much fun Stone had with everything he did. And his love for everything in which he involved himself-- .... Tim went on to say that everyone really, genuinely was -- and is -- in love with Stone. He wrote, "How couldn't we be, when the guy cared so much for the world around him? It was reciprocal....,” Tim added,
"We sat outside Brochstein Pavilion one unusually gorgeous spring day, sipping iced coffees and shootin' the shit when Stone paused our conversation to explain how much he hoped he'd be able to persuade his brother to come to Rice. [I never got to meet Holt, but] Stone's adoration of his younger brother was maybe even more obvious than his height."
Stone spent 2 years here working as Doug's assistant. Holt came one summer, to be Chris Bronk's assistant, between his freshman and sophomore year -- and then the next summer after he was admitted to finish his junior and senior years here. He was so happy to be joining Stone.
J: In Houston, on this beautiful campus, we feel the spirits of our sons in the strong and the gentle breezes. We thank you all for this bench. It is a physical, meaningful representation of their spirits. We hope this bench will be a sacred place where students and professors and dignitaries visiting this amazing internationally respected institute will stop and feel the breezes and remember our amazing sons. We hope that all kinds of people from all over the globe will sit here and meditate and debate and laugh and love and then go forward and carry on Stone's and Holt's dreams of making that world a better place for all.
I would like to end with a meditation woven together from several of Rudolf Steiner's meditations --
Spirit air surrounds us
Spirit bonds sustain us
Hold us and embrace us
Your Light is brilliant
Your Love is radiant
Our Light is brilliant
Our Love is radiant
Eternal Soul bonds
May our Loving thoughts dwell in you
And may yours dwell in us
_______________
Time After Time
Cyndie Lauper
Played and Sung by Clory Martin and Beth Martin