Esther

Ok. Hi. I'm Zack. But you probably already know that.

Some other things you probably know are I am 19 years old. I major in IT and minor in Math at a dumb school in Eastern Ohio. I sleep in my house in Western Pennsylvania. Those two places are 27 minutes apart.

I've been a Harry Potter fan to varying large degrees since I was like 7. I am a Ravenclaw. I tend to dive into things that seem too much for me. Things like reading Infinite Jest in like 12 days last month.

I am a nerdfighter. To me, this means that, first of all, I embrace my nerdiness. Also, I am always trying to be a better person. I think those are basically the two basic attributes of Nerdfighters. Just picture a person telling you, "Nah, I think I couldn't possibly be a better person." Sounds like they're actually a terrible person, doesn't it?

I've been meaning to do a few different select blog posts for a while now.

Here's a story.

So there's a girl I met a little more than a year ago on the internet. Immediately, I thought how awesome the girl was. I mean she's funny, cute, nerdy and I don't really need to go on. Also she's friends with my totally cool awesome friend Blaze.

This awesome girl I met was named Esther. I liked things of hers on facebook. I laughed at her youtubes. I thought that this girl was pretty awesome. I had noticed that in her facebook pictures she seemed to be carrying around an oxygen tank. I didn't ever seem to think to ask anybody about that. I just figured she's a girl who sometimes gets short of breath. Maybe if we were closer she would have told me why without me asking, but our friendship was always strictly facebook comments and @replies.

A few months after i met her, I was talking to my cool and awesome friend Ryan. and we were discussing friends or something. He told me that Esther had cancer. I was surprised that I had never come close to this conclusion myself. I think for the most part I just pushed the thought of cancer out of my head. Or at least I never really considered what cancer often leads to.

Anyhow, so then I started to become better friends with a lot of friends of her and blaze. And it was great. I got to see through the internet what an amazing thing Make-a-Wish was. I still remember the livestream show they had when everybody first got to Boston. And I was excited that everybody would get to meet John Green. It was mostly overwhelming for me, so I'm not even gonna pretend I realize how great of a time everybody had in Boston.

Then July went on and I continued @replying everybody, including Esther. I laughed at her tweets, I might have indirectly told her I had a crush on her. Not quite sure about everything that happened in July/August. I do know that lots of people were doing VEDA and lots were doing BEDA. I attempted BEDA. Esther attempted VEDA. Through John Green's videos lots of people found her VEDA and thought they were great. I loved them because they were made by this girl I had come to realize was completely awesome. So I was failing BEDA. Esther was posting VEDAs a lot to good revies and getting lots of awesome company.

Then I turned 19. It was a pretty awful birthday. I was sick. I started my sophomore year of college. And nothing seemed to be working out for me on August 23rd. We were postponing my "party" to the next night. I ended up going to Olive Garden with my mom that night which wasn't particularly exciting. But I guess in retrospect was really nice.

Then I had my 2nd day. It seemed like my Tuesdays were going to be really stressful. So on my way home that day, I decided to stop and pig out on McDonalds. I found a nice looking church parking lot to park in and eat my lunch. This is one of those really big churches that is welcoming to all religions. So I ended up parking beside the prayer building. I have never been a big prayer person. I usually run on the assumption that God can read my mind and so prayers are sorta useless. but I had an urge to pray in that prayer center. I was lazy and tired though, so I went home.

Shortly after I got home, I found out that Esther was in the ICU and needed all of the prayers. So I drove downtown looking for a church to pray in. Unlike what you see in movies though, churches actually do close and lock their doors when mass isn't happening. So I just sat in my car and prayed like I'd never prayed before. I was worried but I remained hopeful. Her parents had used words implying there was still a chance.

So, I was talking to various friends of Esther's. Trying to calm down and in some cases trying to calm other people down. I realized the awesome great guy, Andrew Slack, was already calming most people down. So I thanked him for being such an awesome great guy. I had no reason to be worried because I thought for sure it was time for a miracle. Lori had even conveyed the message that she probably wasn't gonna make it. But I had enough hope to manage to get to sleep.

I found out she had passed away through a text from Destiny. I guess I just wanted things to be normal so I drove to school. It was a computer class spo i just kept refreshing twitter and every tweet made me cry. And college classes are not the best place for crying, so I just drove home and moped here. I got on Skype and wanted to do something to help anything to help. I offered to drive people to Boston. I was completely clueless.

My friends were sad and I couldn't relate because I wasn't as close to her as anybody. Most of those next few days are a complete haze, but people generally felt better. Since then, I've still been having regular dreams having to do with Esther and I still haven't really felt like anyone can identify with my feelings. She has a wonderful family. She has most of the same best friends as me. She likes the same television as me. How can a person just be gone?