Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered a tearful eulogy for his longtime friend and Senate colleague John McCain on Thursday, during a private memorial service at North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona.

Biden, 75, began by saying, “My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat. And I loved John McCain.”

He then mentioned giving eulogies for other great women and men in the past but added, “This one’s hard.”

The former vice president choked up and wiped away a tear before continuing, “I always thought of John as a brother.

“We had a hell of a lot of family fights,” he joked to laughter from the crowd.

Biden went on to recall how the two quickly “hit it off” when they first met in the 1970s, while McCain was serving as a liaison between the Navy and the Senate. The two later worked together in the U.S. Senate for more than 20 years.

He added that their “great friendship” transcended whatever political differences they had.

“Because above all, we understood the same thing: All politics is personal. It’s all about trust,” Biden said. “I trusted John with my life.”

Biden later spoke about his late son, Beau, who died in May 2015 of glioblastoma, the same aggressive brain cancer that took McCain’s life and also that of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

“The disease that took John’s life — that took our friend Ted Kennedy’s life, that took my son Beau’s life — is brutal, relentless, unforgiving,” Biden said. “It takes so much from those we love, and from the families who love them, that in order to survive we have to remember how they lived, not how they died.”

“The image I carry with me of Beau is strong, vibrant: the best man his brother Hunter and I ever knew. I’m sure Vicky has her image of Teddy, maybe looking so alive on that beautiful sailboat of his,” Biden said. “Find your image of John, remember it: his smile, his laugh, a moment on the ranch, at a dinner, on a vacation, when you would turn and see him just staring at you, or when you saw the sheer joy that crossed his face the moment he knew he was about to take the stage or go to the floor of the Senate — and start a fight. God, he loved it.”

Biden hailed McCain as a hero but said that “John’s story is the American story.” “America’s future didn’t rest on heroes,” he said. “Heroes didn’t build this country. Ordinary people given half a chance are capable of doing extraordinary things.”

Wednesday’s service is one of several honoring McCain this week, after the iconic Arizona Republican died of brain cancer on Saturday at 81.