Morning, Hank. It's Friday
Esther Earl, the nerdfighter who inspired a lot of nerdfighters recent worldsuck decreasing projects,
died earlier this week.
She was sixteen.
Esther was a great friend to many people in Nerdfighteria
and a great friend to me personally.
And for a long time, she was a huge part of the life of the Nerdfighter community.
And our community in turn was a huge part of her life:
her best friends were nerdfighters,
here you can see her nerdfighter friends giving her a scrapbook
that includes notes and drawings from hundreds of Nerdfighters.
Hank, Esther was an amazing kid,
she was astonishingly empathetic,
she was really thoughtful,
she was very funny.
But she wasn't an angel or a model of perfection or anything.
She was a person.
She was a teenager.
She answered Formspring questions like,
"Do you have names for your butt cheeks?"
with
"Not as of yet, but that is a good idea."
But she also wrote tweets like,
"Words aren't overwhelming me
they're just going into my brain
and I contemplate them
and then I decide I don't need them
so I throw them away."
It was with Esther that the Nerdfighter community came together
and helped the Harry Potter Alliance win $250,000.
And Hank it was because of Esther that on Esther day, I told you that I love you.
Which I do although, I don't want to talk about it.
And even though Esther has died,
we will continue to do projects with her.
Because it will be when we work to decrease worldsuck
and when we show our love for others
that Esther will be with us most.
So Hank, as you know, before I wrote books,
I worked as a chaplain at a children's hospital.
And when I was there, my supervisor always used to tell me,
"John, don't just DO something,
stand there."
We all want to do something to mitigate the pain of loss or to turn grief into something positive,
to find a silver lining in the cloud,
but I believe there is real value in just standing there,
being still,
being sad,
bearing witness to Esther's life
and allowing ourselves to be transformed by it.
Esther talked to me about that when I saw her a couple months ago in Boston.
She talked about how she believes that the dead live on in the memory and the lives of those they have touched.
But there is something in this case that we can do, if you're so inclined,
you can give to the Friends of Esther Fund,
a fund that goes directly to her family to help them deal with many expenses that were incurred during her care.
There's a link in the doobly-doo to give.
There's also links to Esther's Twitter account and to her YouTube account.
She was vlogging throughout much of the last month
and her vlogs are hilarious
and charming
and very touching.
So Hank, on Monday vlogbrothers videos will again start looking vlogbrother-y
and I will do my punishment on Wednesday.
By the way, thanks to everyone who participated in the birthday video.
That was just--
gahhh.
But we will continue to be inspired to do big things
to make the world suck less with Esther.
Esther means "star"
and her friends had a bracelet printed up that reads,
"This Star Won't Go Out." and
And it won't.
We won't let it.
Hank, I'll see you on Monday.
One quick story about Esther.
So we were all answering questions that were written on a soccer ball,
and the question Esther got was,
"What would you tell your younger self
if you could go back in time and speak to her?"
And first, she was like,
But then she did answer the question, Hank
and her answer is, I think, a nice reminder to all of us.
[Esther]: "Maybe I would say...
That your family
is...
like, important.
[Boy]: Okay.
[Esther]: Oh yeah, okay.
Esther,
my friend,
godspeed.
