Bruce Hinman

 California Highway Patrol Officer #11820

Bruce T. Hinman

Killed in the line of duty Oct 3, 1995

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, "There! She's gone!" Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and she is just as able to bear her load of living weight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side say, "There! She's gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout. "There she comes!" And that is dying. author unknown.

So even though Bruce is out of our sight let us somehow draw comfort that he has been welcomed by other family, friends and officers we have known and are no longer here with us. They are the richer for having him, and we are richer for having known him.

"excerpts from my eulogy delivered at Bruce's funeral, Oct. 6, 1995"