Patrick Stewart

The Captain Who Helped Raise Me

I've seen a lot of wonderful tributes to Sir Patrick Stewart over the past few days, and I've been trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to say about him. Those of you who've been watching my videos for the past 20-plus years know that I'm a huge Star Trek fan. I reference Star Trek constantly in my classes. My databases are full of starships, crew members, and references to the Enterprise. It's been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

It's funny how the loss of someone you've never actually met can affect you so deeply. I felt it when Leonard Nimoy passed away, and I felt it when Neil Peart of Rush died. His music and lyrics had been a huge part of my life for decades. I'd never met either of these men, and yet their passing felt personal. Patrick Stewart is another one of those people, and I wanted to take a little time to explain why this one hurts so much.

Growing Up With Star Trek

I grew up watching the original Star Trek in reruns. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, the Enterprise. I loved all of it. As a kid, I was fascinated by computers, science, astronomy, and space exploration. I wanted to be an astronaut. NASA was one of my favorite things in the world. But when you're eight or nine years old, watching the original Star Trek was almost like watching a Saturday morning cartoon. There were spaceships, aliens, phasers, and plenty of action. Sure, there were deeper messages in those stories, but most of them went right over my head at that age.

Then, in September 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered. I was 14 years old, and by that point I was starting to appreciate more serious science fiction and fantasy. I was reading things like The Lord of the Rings and beginning to appreciate stories that were about more than just action and adventure. So naturally, I was excited about a new Star Trek series. More spaceships, more computers, more exploration. What's not to love? But I found something in The Next Generation that I wasn't expecting. I found a role model.

The Captain I Needed

This is something I haven't talked about much publicly, but I think it's important to understanding why Captain Picard meant so much to me. My parents divorced when I was young, and I didn't see much of my father growing up. My grandparents raised me, and my grandfather was the man I looked up to as a father. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years before The Next Generation premiered.

So here I was, a 14-year-old kid, just starting those formative years when you're figuring out who you are, what kind of person you want to be, and what it actually means to become a man. And along comes Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Now, I'm not saying a television character replaced my grandfather. Nobody could ever do that. But Picard became something of a father figure to me during those years.

He was intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, and principled. He believed in doing the right thing, even when it was difficult. He valued diplomacy over violence, reason over anger, and understanding over prejudice. He wasn't perfect, either. He made mistakes. He struggled with his decisions. Sometimes he was stubborn, sometimes he was wrong, and sometimes the right answer wasn't obvious. But that's what made him such a great character.

He showed me that being a leader, and more importantly, being a good man, wasn't about being the loudest or strongest person in the room. It was about having integrity. It was about listening. It was about knowing when to stand your ground and when to admit you were wrong. When things got difficult, he didn't panic. He thought things through, listened to the people around him, weighed the consequences, and made the best decision he could. Those were lessons I needed at that age.

The Next Generation ran for seven seasons, from 1987 to 1994. I watched it from the time I was 14 until I was 21. Think about that. Those are some pretty important years in a young man's life, and during those years, Captain Picard was there every week. Later, when I became a father myself, I found myself appreciating those lessons even more. How do you teach your children to do the right thing? How do you handle difficult decisions? How do you lead by example instead of just telling people what to do?

I'm certainly not going to pretend I've always lived up to those ideals. Far from it. But I've always had that example to look up to, and I think that's a big part of why Star Trek has remained such an important part of my life, even today. And yes, my kids were definitely exposed to plenty of Star Trek and Rush growing up. I figured if those two things helped shape my character, they couldn't hurt theirs. Whether they appreciated all those lessons at the time is another story.

The Man Behind the Captain

As much as I admired the character of Jean-Luc Picard, over the years I came to admire Patrick Stewart himself just as much. And I think that's an important distinction. Picard was a fictional character, written by talented people and brought to life by a wonderful actor. But Patrick Stewart was a real human being, with his own struggles, flaws, experiences, and convictions. And from everything I've learned about him over the years, he was a genuinely remarkable man.

On a recent flight, I finished reading his memoir, Making It So, and I highly recommend it. What a fascinating life. He grew up in a working-class family in Yorkshire, England, and his childhood was far from easy. He witnessed his father physically abusing his mother, something that profoundly affected him for the rest of his life. Rather than simply putting those memories behind him, he used his fame and influence to help others.

He became a passionate advocate for women experiencing domestic violence, supporting organizations like Refuge. He also supported Combat Stress, which helps military veterans dealing with psychological trauma. I find that particularly admirable. He recognized the suffering his mother endured while also coming to understand the trauma his father carried from his military service. He didn't excuse the violence, but he tried to understand the human beings involved. That's the kind of compassion I admire.

He was also a strong supporter of equality and LGBTQ rights, and his friendship with Sir Ian McKellen was one of those wonderful relationships that always made me smile. Two legendary actors, both incredibly talented, both willing to use their public platforms to stand up for people who needed a voice. And hey, if Professor X and Magneto can be best friends in real life, maybe there's hope for the rest of us after all.

And then there were the dogs. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love dogs. I've got two black Labs myself, Carter and Cooper. Patrick and his wife, Sunny, fostered rescue dogs, particularly pit bulls, and helped bring attention to the importance of giving these animals a second chance. Seeing this distinguished Shakespearean actor, the great Captain Picard himself, completely smitten with a rescue dog always made me smile. That's the sort of thing that tells you something about a person.

Of course, I admired him as an actor. His Shakespearean work, his performances on stage, his role as Professor Xavier in the X-Men films, and countless other performances showed just how talented he was. But what I admired most was the man he seemed to be when the cameras weren't rolling. He wasn't just someone who played a character with strong principles. He made a real effort to live by principles of his own.

The Inner Light

I can't talk about Patrick Stewart without mentioning what is probably my favorite episode of The Next Generation. It's called "The Inner Light," and if you've never seen it, I strongly encourage you to watch it. Even if you're not a Star Trek fan, it's an absolutely beautiful piece of storytelling.

In the episode, the Enterprise encounters a mysterious probe that sends a beam of energy into Captain Picard. Suddenly, Picard finds himself living the life of another man on a distant planet. At first, he's confused. He doesn't understand where he is or what has happened to him. He remembers being Captain Picard, commanding the Enterprise. But as time goes on, he begins to accept this new life.

He has a wife. He raises children. He watches them grow up, and he grows old. He learns to play a little flute, and he lives an entire lifetime. Eventually, he learns that the civilization he's been living in is doomed. The people of this planet know their world is dying, and they've sent this probe into space so that someday, someone might experience their lives and remember that they existed.

Then Picard wakes up aboard the Enterprise. Only about 25 minutes have passed, but for him, it's been decades. He's lived another life. He's loved people, raised a family, grown old, and lost everything. And now he's back aboard his starship, surrounded by people who have absolutely no idea what he's just experienced.

Near the end of the episode, Commander Riker brings Picard a small box recovered from the probe. Inside is the flute he learned to play during that other lifetime. Picard sits there, alone, and begins to play. I can't even describe that scene without getting a little choked up. I've seen that episode more times than I can count, and it gets me every single time.

It's not about spaceships, battles, aliens, or technology. It's about life, love, family, loss, and memory. It's about the fact that an entire civilization can disappear, but as long as someone remembers them, something of them lives on. And Patrick Stewart's performance is just extraordinary.

There's no grand speech, no dramatic confrontation, and no captain barking orders from the bridge. Just a man sitting alone with a flute, remembering a lifetime that nobody else knows he lived. To me, that's some of the finest acting and storytelling Star Trek has ever produced, and in a way, I think it's the perfect episode to remember Patrick Stewart by.

The Legacy He Leaves Behind

I've been thinking a lot about that episode over the past few days. In "The Inner Light," an entire civilization places its memories into a single person, hoping that somehow, in some small way, they'll continue to exist through him. And isn't that what great artists do? Patrick Stewart spent his life bringing stories and characters to audiences around the world, and those stories became part of our lives.

For some people, he was Professor Xavier. For others, he was a Shakespearean actor whose performances they'll never forget. For me, he'll always be Captain Jean-Luc Picard. But more than that, he'll always be the man who helped teach a 14-year-old boy what it meant to grow into a decent human being.

He taught me, through that character, that intelligence and compassion aren't weaknesses. That standing up for what you believe in matters. That leadership requires humility. And that sometimes the greatest strength you can show is simply doing what's right when doing what's easy would be so much more tempting.

I never met Patrick Stewart. I never got to shake his hand or tell him what his work meant to me. But I hope he knew how many lives he touched, and I hope that somewhere along the way, he understood that he wasn't just entertaining people. He was inspiring them. He certainly inspired me.

So thank you, Sir Patrick. Thank you for the stories, the lessons, and the example you set, both on the screen and off. And thank you for giving a young boy, who was missing an important father figure in his life, someone to look up to during the years when he needed it most.

In my mind, Captain Picard will always be sitting in that chair on the bridge of the Enterprise, ready to take his crew on another adventure. And somewhere among his belongings, there's a small wooden box containing a simple flute, a reminder of another lifetime and all the people whose stories live on through us. That's how I'll remember him, and that's how I'll remember Patrick Stewart.

Bon voyage, mon capitaine. And thank you for everything.

RR