At the funeral of a teacher killed in last week's Florida massacre, his fiancée was careful to follow the wishes of her slain love.
Scott Beigel was gunned down Wednesday along with 16 others in one of the worst school shootings in America's history.
Well before the carnage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Gwen Gossler said she and her fiancé were watching news coverage of another such tragedy on television when Beigel made a request.
"Promise me if this ever happens to me, you will tell them the truth — tell them what a jerk I am. Don’t talk about the hero stuff," Beigel said, according to a report in the New York Post.
At the 35-year-old geography teacher's funeral Sunday, Gossler fulfilled his wishes.
"OK, Scott. I did what you asked,” Gossler reportedly said. "Now I can tell the truth. You are an amazingly special person. You are my first love and soul mate."
According to one of his students, Beigel was a hero who saved her life.
In interviews that followed the horrors at the high school, student Kelsey Friend told CNN that Beigel was fatally shot as he saved her life while shutting a classroom door.
"Mr. Beigel was my hero and he still will forever be my hero. I will never forget the actions that he took for me and for fellow students in the classroom," Friend said. "I am alive today because of him."
In addition to teaching, Beigel was a counselor at a Pennsylvania summer camp.
Like his students, Camp Starlight wants the world to know Beigel was a hero.
"The Starlight Family is wrapping their arms around each other today singing from our hearts to Starlight’s beloved friend and hero, Scott Beigel," the camp wrote in a Facebook post.
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