Hundreds of mourners gathered Monday at Christ the King Catholic Church in Milwaukie to honor the life of Ricky Best, one of two men killed May 26 during an attack on a MAX train.
They packed the 750-seat sanctuary to capacity and opened the funeral mass with song, "They will know we are Christians, by our love, by our love.
"We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand."
Best, 53, worked as a technician for Portland's Bureau of Development Services. He was headed home to Happy Valley when a man on a Green Line train began yelling epithets at two teenage girls. Three men on the train stood up to intervene and were stabbed in the neck. Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, died from their injuries.
Best is survived by his wife, Myhanh Best, three teenage sons and a 12-year-old daughter. The family members are parishioners at Christ the King. A red brick engraved with the Best family name commemorated the family's donation to the recently completed parish center. On Monday, the brick was encircled with white roses and stones, serving as a small memorial in the church courtyard.
Ida Bauman, a parishioner and friend of the family, stopped at the memorial before the service.
"He's a modern day martyr," she said.
The Rev. Rick Paperini also used the word "martyr" in describing Best's actions.
"I was absolutely shocked to hear of this tragedy but I was not shocked to hear what Ricky had done," Paperini said. He quoted Scripture: "Love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
"It is a privilege to love," Paperini said. "I think Ricky understood love this way. He saw it as an opportunity and a privilege, and that's why he responded the way he did on the 26th of May, 2017."
In a brief eulogy, Best's son, Erik Best, said his father understood deeds were more important than words. He said his father was a "child of God."
Archbishop Alexander K. Sample described the actions of those who stood up on that train as "an amazing demonstration of human love and dignity and respect for another."
And when he learned Best had been one of the men who stood, he said he was proud. "Proud that a member of our own Catholic community here in the Portland area really witnessed to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, to love another as we love ourselves, as our Savior taught."
The Catholic Mass ended with a message from the Quran, as Harris Zafar, Community Outreach Director of the Rizwan Mosque, spoke. The two young women on the train were the targets of aggressive Islamophobic speech before Best and two others stepped in, witnesses and police said.
"If I had the opportunity to see (Best) today I would simply say thank you. Thank you for being the father I strive to be and the human being I strive to be," Zafar said. The Quran says that whoever takes one life, it is as if he destroyed all of mankind, "but he who saves one life, it is as if he had saved all of mankind."
Zafar said he believed Best saved those two teens.
One of the girls, 16-year-old Destinee Mangum, attended the service with her family, as did uniformed members of Portland Fire & Rescue, Portland police and Mayor Ted Wheeler. Those in attendance included women wearing hijabs, nuns wearing habits and family members wearing white headbands of mourning. Myhanh Best is from Vietnam, and the bands are a Vietnamese funeral custom.
Best was a 23-year Army veteran. After the service, the family invited members of the community to line the funeral procession route from Christ the King Church to Willamette National Cemetery, where Best was buried with military honors. Gov. Kate Brown presented the family with the Oregon flag at the burial.
As the procession drove past, Linda Sorensen stood along Bob Schumacher Road clutching a white peony she had plucked from her backyard.
"I'm here because I was deeply affected by what happened ... and I just want the country to know this city is a good city, is a city of good people, people that care," she said. "He put his life down for those two women and I admire that. I think it's heroic and I just want to be one of these people that says thank you."
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the speaker who read from the Quran.
-- Samantha Swindler
@editorswindler / 503-294-4031
sswindler@oregonian.com