ESTHER GRACE an introduction
Star Pillow,
SAUDI ARABIA, 2000
Esther at work,
MASSACHUSETTS, 2003
From the time she was little, Esther was certain she was going to be a writer. And we believed her. She loved words, felt their power, and believed in the magic of story. Later, she would keep a running list of ideas and characters she hoped to develop. We encouraged her to write and promised enthusiastically to help her find an audience for her work.
From about age eight, she began keeping a diary and increased the pace of her entries as she grew older. Of course, she didn’t keep a diary with the idea that what she wrote down would one day be published. She wrote because she had to. She was passionate about the process and found it essential for her mental and emotional health to be able to get her thoughts out of her head and onto the page. Like many people her age, keeping a journal helped her navigate the passage from childhood to young adulthood; writing became increasingly critical after her diagnosis.
Her writings now belong to you, the reader. We feel certain she would not have objected. She often spoke of her desire to encourage and inspire others and would have done that whether or not anyone noticed, perhaps especially if no one noticed. She was a champion of the lonely, a welcomer of strangers, an inviter.
Esther usually wrote in her journal as the final act of her day, in her bed, and only after first reading something delicious. It’s clear that she related to her diary as a person and often reread her entries as she sought to improve her strengths and address what she thought to be her flaws and failings. As the years moved forward, her style and content began to reflect a life of purpose through the perspective of an empathetic and joyful young girl forced to navigate the monstrous reality of a cancer death sentence, while at the same time entering the beguiling world of early twenty-first-century adolescence.
Children’s Hospital,
BOSTON, 2008
Flying home from Europe, 2004
In the face of such an unwelcome intrusion, we often found ourselves feeling helpless as we struggled to stay positive. For us, Esther’s omnipresent breathing machine was an incessant reminder that the day was coming when its comforting whirring would be silenced. But Esther chose to see things differently. Throughout her treatment, she felt that, overall, life had been good to her. She had the love of family, friends, and she was daily renewed in her focus on a mission to comfort and care for others. No matter how heavy the assault, until her work was done, she had no plans to abandon her hopeful post. Two weeks after her sixteenth birthday, she tweeted to friends:
Like if I can ask for three talents they’d be: able to reach into bodies (without hurting them) and remove all cancer, able to dance & WORDS
Creating words that could heal and energetically sharing and celebrating life in the here and now: that’s her legacy. We are convinced that this, along with a deep love for others, is how she would want to be remembered.
Her life was her book. She didn’t get to choose the ending, but the way she filled the pages makes her story irresistible. Sharing our Star—our amazing burst of sunshine—is a way of spreading light. We are so grateful that she graced our lives, if only for a short time. Through reading the words of this young author, we hope that others will be inspired and changed for the good, as we have been.
Untitled artwork,
DECEMBER 6, 2008
