Cynicism about politics and public life has become so rampant it is hard to know how to begin to turn the tide.

But on Wednesday, as nearly a thousand members of our Island community crowded the Agricultural Hall to honor F. Patrick Gregory, it was impossible not to sense a collective longing for the simple virtues of respect and kindness.

Pat Gregory was much more than the longtime moderator of West Tisbury, as those who stood to remember him this week made clear. But his core characteristic, a generosity of spirit, flowed through his many roles — husband, father, friend, neighbor, teacher, businessman, civic leader — and infused his public person.

He knew when to allow discussion and when to cut off debate, selectman Cynthia Mitchell told the congregation. He never had a bad word to say about anyone, said his college roommate, Joseph Arceri. He didn’t believe in vengeance, said his daughter, Shannon.

“My dad was a whistler, an optimist, a believer in the human spirit,” said his son, Timothy, “He would tell me, give a guy an out. Give a person an out. And what he meant was, help a person out. Empathize.”

It’s a small, but powerful prescription, and one that might find current application in various places around the Island where good, well-meaning people disagree.

Perhaps no one would have been more surprised than Pat to discover that the loss of one person, a gentleman in every sense of the word, could resonate so deeply in a community.

How better to keep his legacy alive than to occasionally ask ourselves, what would Pat do?