Mourners pay respects, show love for President Hinckley

He was the people's prophet.

It wasn't just the fact that he led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for nearly 13 years, or traveled almost a million miles to conduct the church's business, or helped spread the faith and its message in ways few could have imagined a decade ago.

As President Gordon B. Hinckley confessed to church members worldwide during a recent general conference, "I love you."

And they loved him back in a personal way at his viewing on Thursday, coming by the thousands to the Conference Center downtown, in cars and buses; on bikes and on TRAX; lugging backpacks and bags and briefcases; in wheelchairs and strollers; walking briskly and slowly; with canes and crutches and walkers and tiny children in tow.

They are old and young, able-bodied and feeble, missionaries with tags and many more without them. They came in suits and dresses as well as jeans and parkas, a mixture of people typical in any Utah suburb — most of them Latter-day Saints, but many of them believers of a different stripe.

As they filed quietly into the center he built to help spread what Mormons believe is God's message around the globe, the reverence and the love was palpable.

Gathered in groups at the bottom of the massive building's escalators, they waited to move up to floor three — anticipation, remembrance and a deep desire to pay their last respects all percolating inside. As they entered the Hall of the Prophets — with busts of President Hinckley's predecessors looking on — there were weak smiles, but no laughter; tears, but no tragedy; and good-byes, but no fear that it was a farewell without a future.

Latter-day Saints believe they will see their beloved prophet, who died Sunday at the age of 97, again, in a better time and place.

But today, it was enough to say farewell.

Some brought flowers, some brought cards. Most brought memories of times they were touched deep inside by a man they had never met, but felt they knew personally.

Tributes were both silent and spoken, as some paused at the casket with tears, while others spoke quietly to themselves and their loved ones about their prophet, dressed in white, looking as peaceful in death as he was animated in life.

One young missionary in a wheelchair was pushed up next to the casket and rose from his seat as those around him helped steady him. With his head cocked to one side, he whispered a personal message inaudible to those around him, brought his hand up in what appeared to be a salute, and paused for a minute more before returning to his seat.

For those few seconds, it was just man to man.