Serious Post Again:
So, I just finished The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I got it from Amazon, and I carried it around with me everywhere this summer so that, whenever I had a spare moment, I could pull it out and read it. It's really, REALLY good, and it's about a girl named Hazel who has cancer, who falls in love a with a boy named Augustus who has cancer, and it's happy and sad and beautiful and awesome.
Anyway, the book is dedicated to Esther Earl. And being a fairly new recruit in Nerdfighteria, I didn't know who Esther Earl was. And then, gradually, things began to reveal themselves.
First, there was a LeakyCon thing about the Esther Earl Charity Ball, or something. The only reason I saw it was because my mom and I had a master plan to go for two hours, which was foiled when we realized there was no way we'd be able to get to Chicago and back by car in time for school. And then there was the fabulous John Green's video made at his desk treadmill thing. He mentioned Esther, and some stuff about Esther Day being today, and then a t-shirt contest.
Now, I normally don't do stuff like this: You know, designing posters and t-shirts and stuff for contests. They used to make us do it in middle school all the time, making us do posters about saying no to drugs and alcohol and stuff. I hated it. But I clicked the link anyway, because it sounded like a big deal, and I'm curious.
Boy, was I ever in for a surprise.
The link took me the This Star Won't Go Out charity website. I clicked on Esther's Story. I read. I hummed to myself so that I wouldn't cry.
Esther had the same cancer as Hazel, without the benefit of Hazel's fictional Phalanxifor that keeps her alive. Esther was diagnosed at twelve, and then had a relapse at sixteen. She did some awesome charity work for Harry Potter Alliance and contributed to the nerdfighter community in so many ways. She hated America's Next Top Model.
But, after watching her videos, I agree with Mr. John Green. Most importantly, she was a person. Just a person, who had cancer, and tried to make the best of it. But she said herself that she was just a person. The wise, sad-eyed cancer warrior with the secret to the Meaning of Life behind her eyes may exist somewhere-- mostly in books, because books tend to favor the poetic. But that wasn't Esther. I'm not pretending I knew her very well, or knew her at all. I didn't know who she was until a few days ago.
I think I, like almost everyone else in Nerdfighteria, like her last video best. But it isn't because at the end she says, "I love you." I don't see the video as a poetic irony at all. She gave everyone a tour of the downstairs part of her house. There was one shot involving her holding the camera over the toilet while it flushed (nothing was in it, but still). There were also the customery quirky cookie monster cartoons periodically in the video.
In short, this wasn't the video of someone who knew they were about to die and tried to make it meaningful. This was the video of someone who expected that there would be future videos. Maybe not tons and tons, but still, future videos.
I mean, I know since it was her last video, we all try to read into it. How nice, her last words in her last video were "I love you." But what if things had been different? Say she knew that that was going to be her last video-- do you think it would have been more meaningful? What if her last video had just been her, sitting there, singing wizard rock with her little brother, or saying something in a French accent with only her dog on camera?
We never know. The universe doesn't put a little red dot on our foreheads a month before we die, so that we have time to count the days and set things straight. We never know what's going to happen. Some people fear that, because they want to see the bad coming. Some people long to know that their future will be better than their present.
Esther... honestly, I don't know. I don't know if she was scared, but I bet she was scared. I don't know if she saw a future for herself beyond cancer, if she ever imagined growing old post-diagnosis. I don't know, because I didn't know her. But she lived in the moment. She didn't make all of her videos as if they were going to be her last videos ever. She was just doing the same thing everyone else was doing.
I don't think I'm scared of the future. The likelihood that the future will hold something either disasterous or wonderful for me is about the same. I don't assume for a minute that I'll live any longer than Esther did, because you never know whether a bus, proverbial or otherwise, will come around a corner and hit you. But then, living a short life doesn't make it less happy or meaningful. People talk about long, full lives, but a short life can be more full than a long one.
There isn't really a point to anything in this post, except that Esther is a person we should remember, and loving everyone in the world, regardless of who they are or what they've done, is something that we should try to do, because everybody deserves to feel loved, and it always makes people feel good to know that someone loves them.
Unless you're Voldemort, and/or the Mongols.
Rest in Awesome, Esther Earl.
"Life is a disease: sexually transmitted and ultimately fatal." ~Neil Gaiman
Links: Link to TSWGO website- donate or buy a bracelet (which is also donating)
Link to Esther's YouTube Channel
