EULOGY,
Esther Earl’s Funeral, August 29, 2010
by Wayne Earl
Thank you, Jim and Julie Salmon, and thank you Pastor Jim and Medway Village Church, for opening up your hearts to us; your home to us. Esther would have been so happy to see all these people, to know that she had so many friends that loved her. And she sang right from this stage, she was in the choir, and she enjoyed many good songs in this place.
And so, you may say, well, “Why are you up here making these comments, I mean what do you know?” Well, I got the front-row seat. And I got to see her closeup. It wasn’t just box seats; I was in the dugout. I was right with her in her life. But more than that, I got to love her. And I got to be loved by her. And we got to love her. We got to be loved by her, touched by her brilliance.
And then, you know it’s not coincidence that this was her name: Esther Grace. It’s the only name we had for her. I mean if she had been a boy she might have been Herman Mudd or something, but she was a girl so her name is Star. I always called her Star. I always called her Estee. And Grace was just the reminder we didn’t want to forget that it’s all about grace. It’s all about the fact that we don’t deserve these good things, but they’re ours anyway, to enjoy and to share and to delight in. She was a star! A star illumines, right? I mean when we see the light it’s gone out. But it brightens something; in this case it shined its light—her light—of grace.
She helped us to see our flaws, but you weren’t overwhelmed with that. She helped us see our potential, our life, what we could contribute . . . our awesomeness, right? Some relationships are bad for you, you want to get out of there as soon as you can, and others are good. You like them, you like them to stay that way. And others change us, and we’re never the same. We walk away and we say, “Something happened to me, I am different . . .” The way I describe it is that I want to stand a bit taller, I want to serve a bit deeper, I want to love longer. I want grace to permeate my life. She did that. She lived. Esther lived! Sixteen years, but she lived well and she lived deeply and she was alive!
She loved to go fast, right? From the time she was small she was running and that hair was just flying everywhere. And it was just so bright and cheery and she loved things . . . I remember we were in Saudi Arabia; she was just four years old and she was on one of those motorcars with four wheels and she would take Evangeline ripping around the sand and up and down the streets—well sands—of Arabia.
She loved to create things. You’ve seen her artwork online; you’ve seen it up close. She was just in the middle of creating this wonderful game for Abraham and she didn’t know where the game was going, but he thought she did. She loved her vlogs and all of those cards and texts, and monkey bars and playing in the snow and the beach; everything a kid loves to do.
She had a tremendous sense of humor. Were you touched by that? She was funny; she was funny and she was quirky and different and unique and alive. She liked chocolate milk, all kinds of food and culture, video games, colors and scents and people from different cultures. She liked . . . just the other day she was looking up . . . she said, “Dad, look at this, a website devoted to words in the English language that we no longer use.” She described them for me. She said, “Maybe I can just string them together and make a paragraph or a sentence out of words we no longer use?” That’s where her mind was.
On her Facebook she has a list of things she likes; you know, the ‘Happy dance’ by John Green, Skittles, and Wizard rock. You can see it—the list goes on and on. She liked boys. When she was sick and various friends would visit and crawl into bed with her sometimes—because she was, you know, she needed that connection. But one day I walked in and saw Arka next to her and there was a girlfriend on the other side and I said, “You know, if I ever caught a guy in bed with my daughter, that would be it, but I’ll be graceful this one time.”
She never kissed a boy (she said). But I was reading her journals this week, hmmm. And she, uh, where’s Alexa? Okay, Alexa got her connected up with somebody named John and this John and Esther went off into the bushes at eleven years old, or whatever, and she said that was her first kiss. But then Alexa came back and disturbed them. That was a good thing.
We got to love her. We got to be loved by her. She also loved, loved so well. She loved so well and so deeply. She was passionate about all kinds of things, and passionate about, in Saudi Arabia, about stray cats. She and her sisters would bring in these abandoned cats that were just a mess of fleas and bugs and who knows what else! And, in fact they would say, “Dad, can we keep them, can we keep the cats?” “Yes, you can keep them outside, far away.” She grabbed this big empty bottle of beetles and she filled it, she and her sisters filled it up with bugs and they came into the house and they said, “Mom and Dad watch” and they poured them on themselves and watched the beetles crawl all over them. “Isn’t this cool how they crawl all over you?!” We were not humored.
She loved causes, she loved things that mattered. I didn’t realize this, but she had on her wrist—I’d seen it before—but I didn’t know she still had it on, but she passed away with a “Save Darfur” [wristband] that she had been wearing for a very long time. I don’t know, maybe a year, and also the wristband that was made for her here. She loved her friends, she loved her friends, and she had so many for someone who was housebound and didn’t get out.
She recently started this advice-opinion giving column. People would write her, they would say, “You know I’m struggling, my parents are really getting on my nerves, any advice for how to live with insufferable parents?” And she would write back, “Well I know what you mean, let’s talk about it.” And some of you have seen those entries; she did them personally for each person that would write in. It was becoming more and more common for her to get those kinds of questions.
She loved nerdfighteria and the last eighteen months that brought her alive. Are there any nerdfighters here today? Come on! There are those over here, okay, all right. If you loved Esther, then you are now an honorary nerdfighter, okay? She was a Welcomer. She believed there were no outsiders. She said everybody should be welcomed, and they were welcomed into her heart and into her room. I mean, she knew the difference between brokenness and people who were not real and all of that, but she just invited you in. I would just be amazed at how welcoming she was. It didn’t matter if you were confused or depressed or perfect people who were confused about their sexual identity; whatever it was, she said come on in, I want to love you. I want to be your friend. I want to care for you. I want to understand. She didn’t believe that there were insiders and outsiders.
And she also had this unique capacity for making you feel like you were the most important person in her life. You know, I could say I was the most important person in her life until somebody else walked into the room. And they just went out feeling great. And it wasn’t that she agreed with you. I’d walk in and dump my stuff out and say, “Oh, this is driving me crazy . . .” And she would listen. I realize now that she never said she agreed with me. But she made me handle it. And that’s what grace is: being there. She was there.
She loved her family. She loved Abe. You know, it was easy to do, because we announced his birth from this pulpit. Remember that? We were pretty old then (speaking for myself!). We announced that we were going to have another one, which was a surprise to everybody. You know miracles still occur! So what do you do with a fifth baby? Well, you give it to your daughters. We don’t know what to do! We don’t have the energy so Mom went to bed and I went to work and that was it. You raise this kid. So Evangeline had him for the first year and then Esther the second year when he was one to two. She took care of him, and she homeschooled, which meant, “Would you take care of the baby while I get back on my feet?” She loved Abe and you can see that. You can see that online. You can see that if you knew them together.
She loved her Abby. She thought you, Abby, she thought you were perfect, smart, and witty. And I think if there’s someone she idealized most . . . you know, when she thought (I close my eyes and think, “man, who are those models out there, people I want to be like,” I think of Esther)—she thought of Abby. She said, “Wow I want to aspire to where Abby is.”
She loved Evangeline. Evangeline was there. Evangeline was there when she passed away. And her last conversations were with Angie. She thought Angie was the person that she most wanted to impress. Because Angie was so cool, Evangeline was so cool; she thought she was perfectly beautiful. She was absolutely right. She didn’t like fake people; she didn’t like doing mean things. But sometimes she did these sneaky things. This one time a few years ago when Evangeline, umm . . . when boys were still taboo, Esther created an online account for somebody named Chris and “Chris” began to e-mail Evangeline saying, “Hey I saw you at school and I think . . . ”
How do I know about that? Yeah. Parents, they know all these things. There are no secrets and if there are secrets you only have to wait till weddings and funerals and they all spill out.
So yeah, “Chris” would write her and say, “Evangeline, I saw you at school; you’re so cute, maybe you could leave a note for me?” Esther was just tricking her. Well, when Evangeline found out, of course she was livid and Esther wrote in her diary, she said, “I cannot live with Evangeline mad at me.” And then they worked it out.
Then Graham of course, you know, he’s wandered again. She loved Graham; she led him though the first five years of his life. Graham couldn’t speak very well. Some of you remember that. Graham would come into the room and say, “Subalooga-de-ba-laba-be-abagaba” and we’d look at each other—my wife and I, and Abby and Evangeline—and say, I don’t know. Then Esther would say, “Oh, he wants spaghetti with ice-cream and liver and onions on the side; a little bit of feta cheese in there and some sparkling cider to wash it down.” She knew exactly what he needed, and what he wanted and she was there for him; a special relationship all the days of her life.
And then, for my wife, for Lori; nobody served her as well as you did and you were there night and day, usually not complaining. I helped out a little bit. But no one served her better. Somebody said to Lori recently that she did what none of us could do and Lori said, “No, no . . .” she did, “what every one of us can do” because we all have the spark of life, right? We are all alive; we all have something to give.
She not only lived well and loved well, but she died well, you know, which is no surprise. She knew when to go and it was way too soon. You know how people hang around sometime and you’re like, “Weeellll, you know, I see that it’s getting late now and I believe the last train . . .” and then others, you’re like, “Yeah, well I guess it’s about time to get going.” And others you think, “Nooo! What are you talking about?! You can’t go now.” We didn’t want her to go now. We had things to look forward to, so many things to look forward to, so many friendships that were blossoming, so much of an impact that we saw; that we could feel. Angie was with her and we didn’t know it was the last moment; we didn’t know it was the end. Her very last words, her very last words were, “I’m going, I’m going.” And then she fell asleep and we were with her during those hours that she was sleeping.
I think about the things she’s going to miss, and I can’t, I can’t get my head around it. The things, the anniversaries, the first things . . . the first time I’m alone. I don’t know what that’s going to be like. The first time when I see someone her age and I need grace and we need grace to bear up under it. And God promises that to us, to give us that kind of Grace.
Esther didn’t have regrets; some of us live with lots of regrets, you know. “Oh my goodness, I regret the shoes I wore today! I regret that I just yawned! Oh no! I regret that . . .” Esther was like, “Pfft, Dad, this is life, let it wash over you.”
She died so well. I used to say to her—in the last year especially—I’d say, “Esther, when you . . .” (I believe, when we’d talk about heaven, I’d say I believe that life is more and she agreed and she said . . . she believed that . . .) I said, “When you die, would you just give me some kind of sign? Let’s just work that out now so that I don’t have to wonder if I got this wrong. Can you just tell me somehow, give me a sign?” And I had my last conversations with her, and I told her I loved her and I said this is very serious, but one of the last things I said to her was, “Esther, let me remind you, if you’re going to go home tonight, would you just tell me?”—we had talked about this a lot—I said, “Maybe you could open your eyes and tell me that you see the angels and that you see heaven.” This was a yearlong conversation; we never hid from death; we embraced life.
And she fell asleep. For all those hours we were by her side knowing that she wasn’t going to come back. Then finally, right at the end, she opened her eyes, and she breathed out her last. And I just said, “Esther, you’re going home! I am so happy for you!” And then she was gone . . .
But our relationship with Esther doesn’t stop there. You think . . . the relationship goes on. It goes on! Esther’s in your heart. Your relationship with her is unique. It goes on, it continues. If she isn’t able to guide your life in terms of looking to her as an example of how we should live; if you don’t have that hope in your heart that there’s some other place, some other meaning. Believe me, Esther’s life was almost entirely this world focused, as it should be. She believed that we are called to be here, to make a difference here, to be alive here, and to love here well and leave heaven with God. Let him take care of those details. She had her eye there too, she knew. But she believed in making a difference now. That’s the only way, it seems to me, to live a meaningful life. She did justly, she loved mercy and she walked humbly with her God.
Dr. Seuss said . . . (I figure I need to quote an authority here), Dr. Seuss said, “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.” Right? I don’t know about the first steps in a geography of loss, and I know that it’s unmapped. I know that we all have to go by ourselves, but there’s something bigger than us at work here. And Esther represents that and she’s lighting the path and God is using her in amazing ways. The Star lit up over our hearts and she poured out Grace.
Now, is the story over? Come on as a congregation:
Is the story over? [Congregation responds, “No!”] Will this Star ever go out? [Congregation responds, “No! No!”] Will this Star ever go out? No? In memory of Esther, will you pledge to live a Life of Awesome? You’re supposed to say yes right there. Is Esther alive now more than ever before? [Congregation responds: “Yes!”] Amen.
I got a front-row seat to her wonderful life. She’s my Star. She’s my muse. My kids know that. I’ve always been easy with Esther. She disarmed me. She brought out the best in me, she reminded me of the worst, because I could see it so clearly, but then she welcomed me into her heart. And so many times, like Monday, I said, “Esther, I don’t know what I’m going to do without you when you go. I don’t know how I can get along. What am I going to do?” And then I just expected her like always to say, “Well, Dad, let me tell you; here’s what you do, A B C.” But she said, “Come here.” She just hugged me; held me close, didn’t say anything, didn’t say anything. And I realize now that that was . . . that’s the best way to love someone. Hold them close, know that you’re loved, let it wash over you.
We got to love her and she got to love us. Amen?
