With throngs of people seated in front of him, crammed into the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona, former Vice President Joe Biden has choked up while describing a political rival who waged a bitter campaign against him and former President Barack Obama a decade ago.
Mr Biden had been asked to eulogise Senator John McCain, who died this weekend having faced brain cancer.
“My name's Joe Biden,” Mr Biden said, remembering the Republican figure who had served in Washington for decades. “I'm a Democrat, and I loved John McCain.”
“I always thought of John as a brother,” Mr Biden said of the man he had frequently sparred with during their time in Washington. “We had a hell of a lot of family fights.”
The remarks are part of days long process that will bring McCain in front of the mourners in Phoenix as well as those in Washington, where a service will be held to honour the six-term senator, former representative, and war hero who had become a larger than life figure in American politics.
Mr Biden had been invited by McCain to eulogize him before his death, and the invitation represents a Washington of old where Republicans and Democrats were seen as more likely to work together to get work done — even if they still engaged in heated debates about how things should work out.
In his remarks Mr Biden drew on his own experience with the grief that can be brought from the death of a family member to the type of brain cancer that had killed McCain.
“The disease that took John's life – that took our friend Ted Kennedy's life – that took my son Beau's life – is brutal, relentless, unforgiving,” Mr Biden said. “It takes so much from those we love – and from the families who love them – that in order to survive we have to remember how they lived – not how they died”.
“The image I carry with me of Beau is of him starting a boat, staring and waving,” he continued. “Not the last days.”
Turning to the family of McCain who were present, he offered reassurance: “You will all find your own images”.
Before his death, McCain had invited another Democrat to eulogize him as well: Mr Obama. That president will deliver his remarks Saturday at the National Cathedral in Washington, where former Senator Joe Lieberman — an independent/Democrat — will also deliver remarks.
Mr Obama’s remarks will follow after those from former President George Bush — another sparring partner of McCain’s.
President Donald Trump was not invited to the ceremony, nor was McCain’s 2008 running mate, Sarah Palin.
Closing his remarks, Mr Biden paraphrased Shakespeare to refer to Mr McCain’s towering legacy.
“We shall not see his like again,” the former vice president said.
