Not because John McCain died. Everybody dies, and for the 13 months since his diagnosis with glioblastoma, from which there is rarely an escape, we knew his time was short.

Not because we agreed with his politics. Many of us, even those within his own party, disagreed with his brand of conservatism, though it increasingly looks reasoned, just, and in the American tradition compared with the fevered, self-serving, divisive and amoral mutant form that has replaced it.

Not even because he was a war hero. Many of us thought the war in which he fought, and for which he suffered so terribly from the cruelty of the foe, was a colossal mistake militarily and out of step with American values philosophically.

We weep because of his fundamental decency and because he embodied a kind of Americanism now in short supply and easy to parody — the Davy Crockett “Be sure your right and then go ahead” cussedness of the Scots-Irish, an ethos characterized by another of their heroes, James Webb, as “ fight, sing, drink, pray.”

Born during the Great Depression, he had more in common with the World War II generation of his father (and mine), than with those that came afterward. He believed, as he often advised, in living for something larger than oneself. In the hard school of Depression and World War they learned to care not only about ‘me’ but also about family, neighbors, and country. They did not believe that sacrifice, public service or doing one’s duty was a fool’s game. They believed helping others was at least as important as helping oneself, and that preserving our institutions was the essential work of a citizen.

They also believed in playing by the rules — even in war, even in business, even in politics. McCain loved to fight for a cause, but not to destroy his antagonists. He famously refused the chance at early release from torture in a POW camp not because it might be used for propaganda or because the rules said any release should be on the basis of first in, first out. Not because his comrades would have thought less of him, though they might have. But because he would have been ashamed of himself for taking advantage of his father’s position, and because an officer and a gentleman does not cut in line but puts the well-being of his comrades before his own.

In 2000, in a hard fought primary battle, McCain was a scrappy, ill-funded, maverick outsider running against the son of a president and heir to a fortune. Rather than soil his patrician hands, George W. Bush allowed his gutter fighters, Karl Rove and Ralph Reed, in South Carolina to circulate or ignore false stories branding McCain a traitor in Vietnam, claiming he had an illegitimate black child, and that he had given his wife a venereal disease. He lost, but he did not dishonor himself, as the winner had.

When similar smears were used against Barack Obama, McCain famously refuted them on nationwide television, calling his rival a decent, family man. When John Kerry was slandered for his Vietnam service, McCain stood up for him, as well. And though McCain never repudiated Vietnam and Kerry became an outspoken critic of the war when he returned from combat, McCain became friends with his fellow veteran and senator and collaborated with him to normalize relations with Vietnam.

That was only one of many instances of working across the aisle to get things done, even with conservative bete noire Teddy Kennedy. Putting country before party made him anathema in some hard right Republican circles, but he proceeded full speed ahead to speak out against the Bush administration’s use of torture, to work with Democrat Russ Feingold to regulate campaign finance, to seek less punitive immigration laws, to seek sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa.

In keeping with his willingness to treat people of good will from both sides of the aisle as fellow citizens, he designated the two men who denied him the presidency, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to deliver eulogies. In keeping with putting country first and despising petty tyrants, he banned the sitting president from attending the service. There are limits.

Among his last legislative acts was denying Trump a win on the repeal of Obamacare, not because he was in favor of the policy but because eliminating it with nothing to put in its place would have hurt his constituents, and because the method used was an affront to the regular order of the Senate that he championed.

Though dying of the terrible disease that killed him, McCain had more courage and rectitude than the rest of his party when it came to standing up to Trump’s transgressions. No doubt he saw it as his duty to repudiate a populist demagogue as a threat to the country he loved and served — a last stand for a lifelong crusader.

McCain could be wrong, but when he realized the error of his ways he fessed up. He loved to spar with the press, but stood up for the critical part played by the fourth estate. He took his job seriously, but not himself. He regarded himself as a representative of the people, not their superior. He was a happy warrior for causes in an era of meanness, spite, and polarization. In preference to partisan stand-offs and stasis, he sought collaboration to accomplish good things for America,

We weep because he was a good man of a sort increasingly hard to find, perhaps even an endangered species. He favored straight talk, comradeship, and the courage to be unorthodox while preserving, protecting, and defending traditions.

He regarded politics as a means not an end. He was a patriot, but not prideful; a gentleman, but not a stuffed shirt; a man you would expect to be a good neighbor and a reliable friend. His long time aide Mark Salter said he was “a romantic about his causes and a cynic about the world.”

That is, he knew the worst about men. He’d seen it first hand. But he still believed in fighting the good fight alongside a band of brothers to change the world for the better. His model for grace under pressure was Hemingway’s Robert Jordan, but there was also a huge admixture of Don Quixote in the man. And if that hybrid doesn’t bring tears of amusement and admiration to your eyes, what will? We shall not look upon his like again. More’s the pity.