I'm taking my Esther folder out of a drawer in my room, just to collect some thoughts. I wish I had my phones to see text messages and my Skype so I could see Skype discussions. I must rely on my faulty memory and my emotions to tell just my side of her story.
I met Esther at the end of eighth grade, when I was fifteen. And by "met," I mean we followed each other on Twitter. She and other internet persons (what was to become Catitude) were on Skype and they tweeted great jokes all the time and I decided I want to be part of this so I downloaded Skype onto my old desktop computer, and I became friends with the greatest people I have ever known.
My father only allowed me on the computer until 10 pm every night, so I would leave mid-call without saying good-bye, a thing I deeply regret. It hurt to say good-bye to my friends, even for just a little bit. Later, I would call Esther from my cell phone, and fall asleep to her fifth of the conversation still going on online. And I was content.
Fast-forward a year, and this brilliant person that I've met is suddenly being discussed all over the internet. John and Hank Green, my idols, are tweeting about Esther and something about a "fanbridge," and I was entirely lost. At the school library my Freshman year, I found about Esther's cancer. I had not known before. I remember feeling shocked and terrified and confused and hurt. Why didn't Esther tell me? I thought I was her friend was my thought process the next week. I asked my mother if I could perhaps fly up to Boston to meet Esther, telling my mom about her cancer etc.
That summer my parents split up, my father taking too many medications and drinking too much and not trusting his body anymore and not trusting my mother anymore. She left and moved in with her friends. My father did not understand why I would rather spend more time online than with him or the family in general. My mother left me her laptop, and I retreated to the area upstairs, where I remained for two weeks out of the summer. I blasted a lot of Harry and the Potters and The Mountain Goats and talked to Esther and Catitude whenever possible.
I flew up to Boston that summer to meet Lindsay, Arka, Teryn, Katie, Abby, John Green, Andrew Slack, the Earl family, and Esther herself. I was delighted to meet my best friends and a literary hero of mine as well as see my first wizard rock concert in two years. We gave Esther this scrap book from pages from all of us and Alex Carpenter did a song (listen to that here) and he told us at LeakyCon that we inspired it and waah. I was an idiot, caring only about myself and my then-worries. I regret not spending more time with Esther, and just cuddling with her. I regret not holding her in my arms, warming up her cold feet, and singing quietly to her. I did not cry at all that week, for I had been hardened by time and my familial issues. Crying was a weakness at home.
My mother and my brothers and I moved into a new house before school started. I missed my friends terribly that month. One night, all of the Cats were just talking about something stupid and somebody (possibly Katie of Lindsay but I do not remember at all) said that Esther's fanbridge had updated and that she was in the hospital. I Facebook messaged Lori, Esther's mother, asking about Esther's condition and if we could perhaps talk to Esther in any way, perhaps just get a message to her. Lori messaged me back saying that Esther that she was in the ER and wasn't doing very well which I responded back to twitter and etc. It was amazing the way all of us were online that night, just in a call to comfort one another. Just hearing each other breathing to remember for each one of us to breath again. I remember checking Tumblr to just calm down and Valerie saying, "This is not a time to post pictures of cheese sticks!" or something of that nature and us laughing, as though we had forgotten we could laugh.
I got a call at about 6am the next morning from Lindsay in tears. I probably cried too. She told me the news and I got online. At about 6:45 am my mother walked into my room and asked if I was okay to go to school that day. I wasn't. I didn't leave my bed (read: my computer) the whole day. John posted a video. I cried more. I cried with my friends. We became closer that day, I believe. We weren't just a group of weirdos making poop jokes anymore, we were this Thing. People worried about us and about Esther's family.
And then after that day, nothing happened. I expected the whole to know, but of course they wouldn't know. Nobody at school knew about Esther except for me. I mourned in silence. I saw a backpack with stars on it, almost cried, and walked into the wrong Spanish room and did not realize my mistake for two minutes. I did not care. I wore my crazycrayon shirt we got from Make-A-Wish to school a lot. People asked me about it. I didn't answer. People have asked me about my bracelet, I haven't told them.
The funeral was that weekend. I missed the Monday of the next week. I flew in Friday night and left Sunday night. I cried a lot. The Wake was on Saturday. I stayed with Andrew Slack at his apartment/house thingy (Boston is very different from Florida). I watched him yell at somebody for spoiling Mockingjay. I pooped in the same toilet as Andrew Slack. He washed a Mason jar for me and I saw where he slept. I ate at a bagel place and met Lindsay's father and saw dopplegangers of the people from this picture. I met Lauren and Matt that day. They are my favorite people. The wake was an open casket. Esther looked tiny in death, a cliche I never believed until then. But she looked peaceful, then. It didn't hurt to breathe anymore. And I was happy for that. We got pizza at a place up the street from the funeral house. I think Esther enjoyed that. We toured the North End (I think?) of Boston that night, again. People were celebrating, and we were trying to as well. I thought Andrew Slack said, "fucking," Ryan bought a water bottle and I stole it, we had gelato at the same place we had gotten gelato just two months previously. Sunday was the funeral. I cried a lot more then. It was hard to feel religious when some "God" took away my best friend, but I did my best. A guy with a guitar sang an a song about Jesus arising on Easter which just made me feel awkward and another lady spoke about how Esther "went to this church" and to "find God like she did" etc and I got very angry about the whole ordeal. A bunch of us said things about Esther. I was going to, but we had taken up perhaps too much time, and mostly what I wanted to say was, "Esther wasn't her illness. It didn't matter much that she was sick, because she knew that she was better than that." Esther's dad, Wayne, talked about Esther and how she kissed a boy behind a bush when she was young and brought a bunch of roaches home as pets when they lived overseas and we watched a video/picture montage with songs from Esther's iTunes. It was nice and I still love all of those songs. We watched some of Esther's VEDA, including this one and it was very nice because we laughed in the midst of our tears. Joe DeGeorge played The Weapon on piano and we all sang and cried. And by "we," I mean my row and the one behind me, every one just kind of sat there as we sobbed to a song about fighting Voldemort and evil. Then we went to the cemetery and looked at trees and likened it to the Forbidden Forest and somebody farted and we thought it was a very good thing for them to do and then I got some food and was driven to the airport and I have Lindsay my chocolate frog as a thank you for being so lovely. And I stole Arka's coke. >:)
Matt and Lauren did This Star Won't Go Out: A Tour for Esther and it was amazing and Lauren played her song Art Class which is beautiful and they all sang The Weapon at the end and it was amazing and I have the tour poster about my bed because I love it and I love them so much. It's so nice to meet people who know what you have/are going through.
Project For Awesome was ran by us at effyeahnerdfighters, and so I hosted a couple hour segments then. People asked us to tell stories about Esther and about Esther's MAW and Esther's funeral etc which was all very nice except the stories were mostly (at least from me) something along the lines of, "Once Esther told this joke (told the joke) and I laughed very hard and so did Andrew Slack and then we played with a puppet the end." Lauren and Matt (my favorite people) did their P4A about TSWGO which you can watch here and it's a song and it was inspired by us and I'm stunned every time I think about it.
About four kids died in a car accident at the end of March. I didn't know the teenagers, but my friends did. And they were obviously grieving and I understood that, a lot. And they would tell me that it sucked and that it just hurt forever and I told my friends that believe, I know. I told them how lucky they were that it was public, that people know. I told them that they should be glad that it was not just them in mourning. That you could hold the hand of someone else who knew that person like you did. That the school acknowledged the deaths. The people wore ribbons everywhere and made shirts etc.
LeakyCon happened and the Ball was the Esther Earl Rocking Charity Ball and I did not like that "Charity" was in its name but, eh, minor things. There was a public round table that we did serious ball and I made a reference to this video (sorry I haven't mentioned this before) and I just tried to lighten the mood a bit. LeakyCon was awesome. Every single attendee got Esther bracelets and suddenly it wasn't just me or Catitude thinking about it. It was every single person around me knew. And that was the best feeling. Wayne did a reading of his book that he's going to publish that is a sort of biography of Esther's life. People cried. A lot of people cried. I hugged Kristina Horner and Lauren Fairweather and finally hugged Hank Green and it was nice. Lauren filmed the crying bit which you can watch here and, uh, yeah. After that (possibly some time later, I'm not sure) we had a secret meeting with pizza and a bunch of ~important~ people and I just talked about how Esther and I complained about Twitter being broken or the Tumblr queue being weird rather than our families or our illnesses, which really defines us and our relationship, at least, I think it does. The Ball was great. Joe DeGeorge DJ'd and he played Holland, 1945 in a room with a bunch of teenagers dancing which to me is still amazing and he made the Harry Potter actors dance to Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, and, yeah. I got to go on the MAIN STAGE AND DANCE and it was surreal in the best way.
And then I went home and all of it seemed very unimportant but it still happened and I was still very happy. My IRL friend Bunni (her name's Alex, but that is what we refer to her as) has an Esther bracelet that DFTBA Records sells and so the first day of school I attack hugged her and I just felt very happy.
I'm very defensive of Esther. I worry about fyeahestherearls and comments and always the nerdfightersecrets. I worry that this person that I have so loved and adored will just become this Thing that is Nerdfighteria's or the Harry Potter fandom's. I want Esther to be remembered as a girl, a remarkable happy girl with thoughts and opinions about society and life and family values and religion and poop jokes. The truth resists simplicity. Esther's truth resists simplicity. I will leave you now with two things: one, a facebook message I sent to Esther on October 3rd of last year and two, lyrics from On the Radio by Regina Spektor.
1. "imissu
Like, a lot. So so much. And people have done ~wall posts~ and that's just shit because I miss you in a way I want kept private. Sometimes I wake up from a nap or I'm in school zoning out or just sitting reading and suddenly I'm back and Boston and I can see you and I want to cry and hold you. I never held you in Boston. I wanted to pick you up and carry you everywhere but you didn't let me (which I understand, I don't let people pick my up either). And I just never hugged you like I wish I had. And so many people miss you but I miss you so much more (I think because I am only me). I took off my Friendship Necklace three days ago. I don't mind you never wore, but I think I did. Just a little bit. It may have been dumb, but I guess I like physical things best (oOoOh). And in Chorus one day I just imagined that you were literal light and you let me put your head on your shoulder even though you were literal light. Like you were there, with me. And I had this dream that I was in hell and people were reading me youtube comments. I would do that. I would spend all the money I had to see you again and for us to play video games in hell and I miss you so damn much. And I think it's so
anymore at all. That you're fine where you are. You're probably chilling with Dumbledore and co. But I wish you were chillin' with me. I was so ready to see you this month, but I guess I never will. And I listen to videos on your youtube.com channel and I hear your voice and sometimes it makes me so happy and sometimes I freak out and I don't know. If I could change ANYTHING, I would be with you more. So much more. Like flying up every month and seeing you and sharing your bed and watching Harry Potter and me reading you to sleep. And I think of all the lost time between us. All the calls I left because I wasn't "in the mood" or the tokboxes I never joined or the chats I had to leave at 10 because my dad said so. And how I never KNEW of your Cancer. I didn't know. You just never told me. You never disclosed that information with me. I learned with the rest of Nerdfighteria. Lindsay and Katie and probably Arka and everybody I and you care about knew BUT I DIDN'T KNOW. But I think that says more about you than anything. Cancer is ever-present to you, but you just didn't tell people, because. And sometimes I close my eyes and I feel my eyeballs beneath my eye lids and it makes me think of you. And showering makes me think of you (I can hear you laughing and saying how gross that is). But you introduced me to my BEST friends. And I still speak of you in the present tense. Like sometimes I think I'm going to be fine, and then somebody asks about my bracelets, and I talk about you because you're still alive in my memory and my heart.Your star won't go out."
2."This is how it works
You're young until you're notYou love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath"
