It was a hot day--Tuesday, July 20, 1993, in Washington, D.C.--as Vincent Foster sat in the Rose Garden. That morning he watched as President Clinton announced his new FBI director. Foster returned to his White House Counsel's office after the ceremony. He took care of some legal business, then talked with President Clinton, his boyhood friend, for a few moments. He ate lunch that day at his desk.

A little after one o'clock, Foster left the office, telling his staff he would return. He pulled his Honda Accord onto the streets of Washington, D.C., and drove to a little-visited national park on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River. He got out, leaving his suit coat in the car. In his hand was an antique, .38-caliber revolver. He walked across an open field. Standing beside a cannon pointing out over the woods, Vincent Foster took his own life.

When President Clinton heard the news, he called together his staff to console them on the loss of someone that they all loved. Then President Clinton said these words: "It would be wrong to define a life like Vincent Foster's in terms only of how it ended."

Clinton is right in one sense. But the sad fact is that no matter how much Vincent Foster's friends, family, colleagues, and workmates try to put the end of his life out of their minds, how his life ended will always overshadow his memory. Because how a life, a ministry, a job, or a relationship ends defines and colors all that goes before it.