***If Neil hadn't killed himself.***
The Dead Poets all have moved on with their lives but they all kept in touch. Neil and Todd were living together in a small studio apartment near Broadway. Knox and Chris live together in upstate New York with Charlie and Gloria living right down the street from them. Meeks and Pitts live together as well, working on "science projects" and competing to see who is smarter out of the two, just outside of New York City. And Cameron lives by himself in a small town in Vermont with his three dogs.
All was going well with all of them and it was about twenty-five years after they had Captain's class. Captain was what they called him but his name is Professor John Keating. He taught them to follow their beliefs no matter what anyone else thought. He was their favorite teacher in their entire schooling career.
It was about five in the morning when Neil got the call. Todd had been the one to wake up to the phone because he is the one who has trouble sleeping. He woke up Neil when he went to answer the phone. So Neil answered the phone. He started to tear up when he got the news. Not long after he hung up the phone and then he lost it. Todd moved and hugged him to try to calm him down.
"Neil what's wrong?" Todd asked.
"Captain's dead, Todd," Neil choked through the tears, "he hung himself."
Todd hugged him and they cried together.
"I agreed to tell the others, will you help me?"
"Of course I will."
Around seven in the morning, Todd and Neil started calling their fellow Dead Poets. Neil called Charlie and Gloria while Todd called Meeks and Pitts. Charlie called Knox then around half pas seven and Meeks called Cameron.
The funeral for Mr. Keating is December 15th. The seven men decided to rent hotel rooms near where the funeral will be. They decided to stay there from December 10th until December 20th to catch up on each other's lives and grieve together.
The day comes quickly and the men aren't ready. Chris and Gloria stay behind, they decided to arrive later and let the guys grieve together. Before the funeral began, the minister approached Todd and told him the Mr. Keating's family has asked him to speak because He always spoke of the shy kid who came into his class and never spoke a word and who left his class not afraid to speak his mind. Todd was terrified to speak in front of a crowd still, especially if he didn't know more than ninety-nine percent of them.
People started arriving about an hour and a half later. Todd still wasn't ready to speak but he didn't want to let Captain down. He knew some of what he wanted to say but he didn't know if he would be able to get the words to come out of his mouth. It didn't help that more and more people were arriving and filling up the church. About a half hour later the church was full with people in every pew, people standing, and people out the door.
The minister appeared at the podium. He spoke but Todd wasn't paying attention. There was no way he'd be able to speak. Not long after, it was time for Todd to speak. He didn't hear his name be called so Neil had to snap him out of it.
"Can you and the guys come up with me? I have an idea to honor Captain," Todd asks his husband.
"Of course we can. Guys, Todd needs us."
Todd walked up to the podium with Neil, Knox, Charlie, Meeks, Pitts, and Cameron tailing him. The crowd was very confused by this.
"Mr. Keating was our poetry teacher at Welton. He taught us more than he realized he did. He taught me how to not be afraid of everything. He taught me poetry and expression. He taught me that it was okay that I was different. In our first class with him he took us out of the classroom and he read a poem from Walt Whitman. He told us that we could call him Mr. Keating or Captain. From then on we referred to him as Captain.
"I was Neil's roommate at Welton for both years I was there and he worshipped Mr. Keating. So much so that he found Mr. Keating's senior annual. That's where we discovered he was part of the Dead Poets Society. We asked him about this and he told us eagerly. Neil was the one who decided to start it up again. We met up at the cave every week and at the beginning of every meeting we read a quote from Henry David Thoreau. I would like to read it now with my fellow Society members to honor Captain."
The men all gathered around the podium and recited, "I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life, and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."
It was an open-casket funeral and Neil had brought the book with him. He decided he would bury the book with Captain because it belonged to him and should be buried with him.
As the casket was being lowered into the ground Todd remembered the poem that Mr. Keating had Pitts read from the book during their first class, To the Virgins to Make Much of Time. He decided it would be the perfect poem to send Captain off with.
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Old time is still a-flying. And that same flower that smiles to-day, to-morrow will be dying," Todd recited.
The other six men's heads shot up when they heard these words. They knew exactly why he said that poem. Captain had said that this stanza was written because the writer wanted to convey that we are all food for worms. That we would all "one day stop breathing, turn cold, and die."
They all linked hands around the open hole in the ground and recited that same poem again. Slowly the other people started to leave the graveyard. Soon the only ones left were the Dead Poets. They decided it was time to leave.
As he was walking away, Todd looked by at the gravestone and said, "Goodnight Captain."