Eulogy
My parents and I delivered Erin's eulogy today. This was my portion.
Erin was never a fan of long-winded readings, so, I'm going to try and keep this short.
How do you sum up a person's life, how do you measure their legacy in a few paragraphs? When I said that I'd deliver part of her eulogy I searched and searched for the right words to say. I've always thought that funerals and memorial services aren't for the dead, they're for the living. They're for the people left here who carry with them some part of the deceased - in our memories, in our hearts, in the lessons we've learned and the effects they've had on us. At a friend's funeral last year, I heard someone say, "There are a lot of fake smiles here." I've never believed that. Even if we're holding back tears, or not holding them back - even if we feel that we're choking on that tension in our throats as if we're trying to scream but can't exhale - even then, those smiles aren't fake. They're as real as the memories of the departed, as the influence, as the shared experiences we carry with us.
I've asked myself... What would she want to hear me say? Having read some of the things she wrote in notebooks or journal entries on the internet, I get the sense that contemplating her mortality and the consequence or inconsequentiality of her life weighed heavily and regularly on her mind. I think she'd want to hear that she mattered to people, that our lives were so much improved because of her presence in them.
People who met her only once in person tell me that she changed their lives. They've written us non-stop these past 4 months, and each one reveals more and more of her character. A young friend of mine is battling cancer... She says that the one time she met Erin, that with just a few words Erin opened her eyes to her own inner strength, her inner beauty, and the fact that she had courage to never back down from her disease. That was just how she talked to people...
I've never met someone so unconcerned with pride. So often our battles aren't so much between what's right and what's wrong, but between what's good and what looks good. We're strange creatures, we'll gladly betray our self-interest for our self-image - take what looks right over what is right. To meet someone who put aside that battle is as inspiring as it is refreshing...
To me the hampered life, the passionless life, an inconsequential life - those things are far more frightening than death. If you were around Erin, you saw anything but. Even when I teased her for being obsessed, over some band or some concert or festival or some show or some trip to see a friend who lived half a continent away, I knew she was following her passion - that she had found something to grab on to and that she would hold on to it until the last breath... and that that will stay with us until ours. And that is anything but inconsequential.
Erin was never a fan of long-winded readings, so, I'm going to try and keep this short.
How do you sum up a person's life, how do you measure their legacy in a few paragraphs? When I said that I'd deliver part of her eulogy I searched and searched for the right words to say. I've always thought that funerals and memorial services aren't for the dead, they're for the living. They're for the people left here who carry with them some part of the deceased - in our memories, in our hearts, in the lessons we've learned and the effects they've had on us. At a friend's funeral last year, I heard someone say, "There are a lot of fake smiles here." I've never believed that. Even if we're holding back tears, or not holding them back - even if we feel that we're choking on that tension in our throats as if we're trying to scream but can't exhale - even then, those smiles aren't fake. They're as real as the memories of the departed, as the influence, as the shared experiences we carry with us.
I've asked myself... What would she want to hear me say? Having read some of the things she wrote in notebooks or journal entries on the internet, I get the sense that contemplating her mortality and the consequence or inconsequentiality of her life weighed heavily and regularly on her mind. I think she'd want to hear that she mattered to people, that our lives were so much improved because of her presence in them.
People who met her only once in person tell me that she changed their lives. They've written us non-stop these past 4 months, and each one reveals more and more of her character. A young friend of mine is battling cancer... She says that the one time she met Erin, that with just a few words Erin opened her eyes to her own inner strength, her inner beauty, and the fact that she had courage to never back down from her disease. That was just how she talked to people...
I've never met someone so unconcerned with pride. So often our battles aren't so much between what's right and what's wrong, but between what's good and what looks good. We're strange creatures, we'll gladly betray our self-interest for our self-image - take what looks right over what is right. To meet someone who put aside that battle is as inspiring as it is refreshing...
To me the hampered life, the passionless life, an inconsequential life - those things are far more frightening than death. If you were around Erin, you saw anything but. Even when I teased her for being obsessed, over some band or some concert or festival or some show or some trip to see a friend who lived half a continent away, I knew she was following her passion - that she had found something to grab on to and that she would hold on to it until the last breath... and that that will stay with us until ours. And that is anything but inconsequential.